Thoughts on Studio Scale Elitism Disease (and treatment options)

I have barley touched the surface here and i doubt i will ever do a scratch build but i have already found that every person that i have asked questions from they have gone all out to help no mater how dumb the questions might be.
I have also found a new admiration to scratch builders as I now know the costs involved and personally just trying to track down a few parts to make a resin kit better has my head spinning.

Nwerke said:

Bah, if it's just you that doesn't count, Lee. We mostly know how to take you by now. :behave

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Love ya, Martyn :lol!

lee

:thumbsup Yeah, Lee is a puppy dog. One hell of a bark though!

REL said:

Never have an elitist attitude, because there's always someone out there better at it and will put you in your place. Plus, having an elitist attitude closes your mind to new possibilities and allows ego to be at the forefront of your thinking, and that will cause you to stagnate.

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Now that's saying somethign coming from you

I've built both, but tend to not be the worlds best scratch builder. I get better with each attempt... Well to be honest there have been some complete abominations... I like both. I get an emmense amount of satisfaction out of creating something from nothing.

However if I scratched everything I'd have like 2 models in my collection - I build that slowly... and who wants to have only two models

In all honsety - VERY few of us have built a model completely from scratch... It almost always involves and email/phone call 2AM IM (that is answered) to a buddy (or future buddy) who has a part you need, and will cast it up for you or <gasp> lend it to you for you to cast. The collaborative nature of reverse engineering what was built essentially at random construction effort buy the studio guys is amazing - and what sucked me into this crazy hobby

While I do think that the scratch builders among us do have a higher skill level in general - in construction... I do agree with REL - There is always someone who is better than you at some aspect of the build...

Because lets face it its hard to be an expert at all of the skills required. sculpting, part ID'ing, construction techniques, casting, vacu-forming, painting, weathering, kitbashing etc, etc... or just plain someone has more time to devote to it geting it perfect.

I do have to admit I am one of those old men that miss the old days... but I'm not an a$$ about it

Jedi Dade

True about modding a resin kit - gateway to scratch building. This was my tipping point:

Jason Eaton » Blog Archive » Studio Scale ANH Escape Pod

Jason has a terrific way of communicating, thank god for him at WF 2011, I would have just stared at Lorne Peterson and been too scared to say anything, good luck J was there to do all the talking and get the scoops!



Look I am obviously in the mix with some of this stuff and J and I have talked recently and he knows that I have been working on an exit strategy partially out of frustration and partially out of an upcoming 10 month lapse in babysitting for my 2 year old.


I think part of my frustration lies in the not only the divide between kits and scratchbuilding but the sometimes utter contempt for something that is not 100% accurate, sometimes even a small deviation with be referred to as s#%*&(t.


I do a lot of scratchbuilding, I’ve done a lot of scratchbuilding. Right now I don’t do a lot in the SS arena, I’ve moved more towards doing stuff in the anime arena based on 2d art, which allows for some more creative and artistic freedom. I’ve come to realize that I am just happier in that arena. My life seems to be ever accelerating and I’ve got a lot I want to build, I’ve had to come to the realization that I just don’t have the strict discipline to get every mm right on stuff.



As someone who produces kits and buys kits I see everything in degrees of value. Most of my kits have not been 100% accurate and I have tried to convey this to people before they buy. Most of this comes from decisions made early in the scratchbuilding process, I almost always refer to the viper when I discuss this so I will keep it short. Straighten out the engines, stuff moves, adjust everything else. Basically make a choice and run with it, still in the days of doing most of it by hand so still needs tweaks to get it together. As scratchbuilders making something for a kit we can’t always build the master so we do the best we can to make sure stuff fits. In the real world of production molds would be made off the proto, final changes would be made 2 or 3 times even and final molds made. With the #’s of these being made and the expense of materials, it’s just not practical.



What is most important to me is that the kit is a buildable kit. I have gotten kits that are just unbuildable for one reason or another, I would take a buildable kit that has some accuracy issue over a kit anyday.



Getting a buildable kit does not mean that as a builder you do not want to make your own tweaks to it, when I buy a kit I calculate how many hours of time I have saved in research and actual building to get to that point. If I get a well cast kit that needs some tweaks to assemble or make unique/better, I figure that I have saved at least 100hrs of my time by buying the kit. I know because I know just how long it really takes to scratchbuild stuff.


I know that the expense of kits in the GK community would just not gel in the real world. There is a disparity between what kits sell for and what they may be worth in real world terms, which is why I apply the above formula to anything I buy/build. I am sure that it is part of the tension on builders/buyers side. I will say as a kit producer that I am always broke and price my kits with absolutely no “time” building the pattern baked into the cake. I played in a number of bands for years, and never was compensated at all for learning how to play the guitar, same concept….Even taking that out of the equation when you take the cost of a kit, minus molds, resin, clay, mold box wood, elastic bands (I spent $500.00 on elastic bands last year!), gloves, respirators, dust masks, misfires that wind up in the trash, and a bunch of other expenses you have X left, what ever X is Uncle Sam and local State take about 40% of. What your left with is likely not even min wage, many projects don’t get that or are a loss. None of this does not mean that you as a buyer deserve to get your moneys worth, it’s simply an attempt to clarify the process. This also applies uniquely to the SS world as I know that some GK’s for “other” scales (ie not SS) often sell in the 100’s, SS in the 10’s. Which means that all the expense is divided among very few kits, even by GK standards. On top of that SS models tend to be HUGE, adding to the expense, the ones with 200 tiny parts like the Y, take a huge labor investment as well.



I don’t want people to think that the above is an attempt to foster pity, but I think that it’s important for people to be clear on just what it takes to get a kit to your front door. Just as many have stated here I do this because I love model building, but I fear that this is just not sustainable, certainly never has been economically, but if we tear ourselves apart as a community then whatever “fun” this has been is lost.

^^^^^^^^^^^
Another guy that "knows"

Kudos on taking care of your child in front of pouring more resin BTW. I'm sure it was a rewarding choice.

What does "get me going" is when a guy that has never built anything criticizes the smallest detail of someone elses scratchbuild... I "almost" always bite my tongue, say to myeself "A-hole" and read the next post of talk to the next person.

Jedi Dade

I keep telling Mike that TV will babysit his kids just fine, but he never listens!!!

There is a perception that, if you can't "walk the walk", you can't have an opinion. Au contaire. There are many individuals on this an other forums who have an encyclopedic knowledge of a certain prop that have absolutely no skills at modeling. These people have valuable information to impart. Just sayin'. Placing them in the category of not being modelers, so they have no right to an opinion is elitist in its most egregious sense. I, personally, read every post for the content, not whether the person is a modeler or not.

Oh that's just great Jason now I just found out God is an
elitist as well DAMN! :lol



Mike S......You had a great post !

-... . .- --.. said:

Well, this forum was created back in the days when there was a fixed number of 500 threads on the RPF. That meant every time a new thread was created, one entire thread disappeared. Forever. Since the studio scale threads were mainly dedicated to research and builds, they tended to be updated infrequently and unless they were bumped from time to time, all that hard work would simply vanish. A lot of early work was lost that way.

This forum was created to prevent that from happening, and it existed for years before there was ever a General Modeling forum. In fact, when that forum was brought up for discussion several of us opposed it, pointing out that there were already several well-established sci-fi modeling boards, most of which most of us already frequented as well.

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Beaz,

Thanks for the additional info on this as it is quite different from my understanding!

-... . .- --.. said:

Of course, this was the "Replica Prop Forum", and one of the main arguments for a dedicated studio-scale modeling forum here was that they are replicas of actual props, the original miniatures themselves. The Replica Prop Forum.

General models aren't even replica props, IMO, which was another argument against the creation of the General Modeling forum way back when.

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Yeah, this was more along the lines of my understanding... that general modeling wasn't considered legit.

Hey gang - just want to clarify I'm not attacking or specifically targeting any one person with this thread. Just trying to call attention to the general negative vibe I have noticed lately. It's always been there, of course, but lately it seems pretty pervasive.

That's all.

Maybe I should make a Hitler Bunker Parody video to clarify? :lol

A Sequel...... Yes!

Art Andrews said:

Yeah, this was more along the lines of my understanding... that general modeling wasn't considered legit.

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My sense of it is that even though most of us were/remain "general" modelers of one sort or another, that there's a case to be made that the Replica Prop Forum didn't necessarily need a General Modeling Forum.

For example, I'm in the midst of building two of Eduard's gorgeous new 1/48 Bf 109 E kits and am enjoying those projects immensely. And I have five of those incredible Wingnut Wings 1/32 biplane kits on-deck.

But I wouldn't post any of those builds to the General Modeling Forum here because, well I come to the Replica Prop Forum mostly for the replica props.

Having acknowledged that, the reality is also that I really enjoy scanning the General Modeling Forum here as much as any other, lately more-so, and two of my all-time favorite build threads were in that forum just in the last year alone: Steve Neill's half-scale Enterprise and Jason's half-scale Blade Runner blimp.

What I'm getting at is that there's a chance that you guys may have misjudged some of the Studio-Scale nerds here. We can be cranky on occasion about off-topic threads in this forum, but it's not because we believe that the other stuff is somehow illegitimate.

SO need to get some of the Wingnut stuff. Makes me drool.

Completely agree re General. I wouldn't post a factual build there, something unrelated to film in any way. I mean there's no reason one can't, it just doesn't seem like what it is for. To me, it's for things like Zvezda's Black Pearl kit, or the half-studio scratchbuilds as Kevin says. (I'd be gutted if I couldn't post my 1/2 SS Cygnus build. Still feels like living a dream, that.)

-... . .- --.. said:

My sense of it is that even though most of us were/remain "general" modelers of one sort or another, that there's a case to be made that the Replica Prop Forum didn't necessarily need a General Modeling Forum.

For example, I'm in the midst of building two of Eduard's gorgeous new 1/48 Bf 109 E kits and am enjoying those projects immensely. And I have five of those incredible Wingnut Wings 1/32 biplane kits on-deck.

But I wouldn't post any of those builds to the General Modeling Forum here because, well I come to the Replica Prop Forum mostly for the replica props.

Having acknowledged that, the reality is also that I really enjoy scanning the General Modeling Forum here as much as any other, lately more-so, and two of my all-time favorite build threads were in that forum just in the last year alone: Steve Neill's half-scale Enterprise and Jason's half-scale Blade Runner blimp.

What I'm getting at is that there's a chance that you guys may have misjudged some of the Studio-Scale nerds here. We can be cranky on occasion about off-topic threads in this forum, but it's not because we believe that the other stuff is somehow illegitimate.

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Beaz, given all that you have said and also given that we are making efforts to expand the focus of the RPF, what could we do to make old timer's like you feeling comfortable sharing more of your modeling with us , even if doesn't necessarily fall within the exact realm of a replica?

I find it a missed opportunity for the community that members like you feel that they can't share certain things due to a technicality. If there is any possibility of us finding a solution, I would like to find it.

Pssst, Beaz. I am addicted too.

Instagram

That and the Volks Super Wings stuff! I have two Shindens with all the trimmings (though I missed the Japanese pre-order in 2009, and didn't get the resin exclusive development team figures, sob sob!!)

Okay, I'll throw my own $0.02 into the mix. Even though I've been around I am still a relative newcomer to this area of the hobby. But, as I've been here my skills have improved and my interests have gotten more broad as well thanks to the regular eye candy I've been seeing. Two years ago, I would have said I wouldn't have tried to do a scratchbuilt studio model replica. But today, I am considering it as I have most of the parts needed to build a Trek 3 tug shuttle (still not quite there yet).

From what I can see here and at other model forums I hang out at (aircraft, cars, general SF modeling), it always happens that there are some who have big egos and can't seem to keep them in check. Ego when focused properly can do great things as the egomanics are more likely to take chances. But it can also spawn the elitest attitudes. They use opportunities to squash other approaches if it doesn't happen to suit their own philosophy. You will likely encounter the exact same thing in a totally different hobby like basket weaving or car restoration.

I think on the RPF we are seeing a little of that. We as modelers seem never to be entirely satisfied with something. If some didn't hold disdain for a pure scratch build versus a kit, there would likely instead be an arguement about a styrene kit of a certain flying hamburger from a certain famous series of films having mandibles that aren't towed in right, or apparently crappy details on a Spitfire kit in an aircraft modeling forum. Heck, I recently had to roll my eyes in another forum when some guy made a comment that using decals for aztec panelling on a Trek model was considered a form of "cheating". Cheating? I can bet that if a special effects house on a deadline had to resort to using such pre-printed decals to finish a model, they would do so to save time rather than painting each panel on. Is paint better? Usually yes, but not for every case (or skill level).

There will always be those who think they are "right" or "better" than others. Some take that attitude to be the king of their particular ant hill. It is up to those of us who are willing to help others to indeed remind them that their approaches certainly aren't the only ones and aren't necessarily right for every situation either. But at the same time, one does kind of have to back off a little and not make it a personal crusade if somebody is "wrong". As the saying goes, you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.

In my experience, the ones with the closed minds who are the most vocal about it end up moving on after awhile anyway in search of a more sympathetic audience (or a chior they can preach to) if they don't get their ego satisfaction (and no, that does NOT apply to every situation). Or they do their own attitude adjustment and come back. It takes time. At least the guys whom I have learned from the most by seeing their work like moffeaton, T2Sides, PHArchivist, Steve (who I hope one day comes back) and others are willing to share advice on some matters and give us some cool eye candy to oogle over on a regular basis, whether it be studio models or general ones built entirely from kits. That is the primary reason why I keep coming here afterall.

And for the record, I would love to see what General Modeling stuff Beaz has done.

Here ya go....
http://www.therpf.com/f11/vaders-wingman-37-5-percent-studio-scale-125030/

ULTRA newcomer to this area of the forum and honestly it's one I avoided because it had a stigma of elitism to it (whether deserved or not). Finally got into it following a former members builds and am just now starting to get back into models.

As far as "kits vs. scratch build" a build is a build as far as I'm concerned, they just vary in complexity. However to say that if it isn't studio scale it isn't a "replica prop" is kind of silly no? If I'm making a Polar Lights Enterprise it's still a scaled replica of the prop used, just not 1:1 scale.

Anyhow, the pros can carry on now.