Accuracy..?

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shangos70
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by shangos70 »

This is a good thread Sir T.
Personally I don't lose sleep over such things. I read reviews and build logs but I'm much more interested in learning about any fit issues and the like rather than if the pipe for the pee- bag had been included in the cockpit details.
I had an Aeroclub AM canopy and the white metal for the Phantom but I find vac canopies a faff so didn't bother.
Following what Splash said, If you have been hands on in the past and have intimate knowledge then it can be hard to live with soft detail or other inaccuracies, but reading some of the comments from the die hard keyboard warriors would make you think they were there at the design stage. I doubt some of them have even seen one in the flesh let alone left their Mothers house!
If you can add an aerial or a inlet other little bits good on you, take it as far as you want to go. As you say there are other things out there and it's a hobby after all .
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Stuart
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by Stuart »

splash wrote:
The old Frog Sea Vixen and Matchbox F4k, both have accuracy issues that do make them not right to the eye, the problem for me is, I worked on both of the real a/c during my time in the RN, so the errors stand out to me, so I would try and fix them if I was to build them.
Actually Alan - as somebody with experience with the Vixen, I'd be interested to know what stands out with you as being wrong with it?
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by ShaunW »

I feel that the question of realism is in the eye of the beholder. For instance take a model aircraft or AFV that has an extensive weathered paint job featuring all of those fancy shading techniques that are often seen in the modern modelling environment, particularly in modelling magazines - I think you know what I mean. Looks great as a piece of art. But realistic? mmmmmmm......I don't always think so. It could be argued that with the right paint job and perhaps a dio setting, a basically inaccurate model shape wise can be made to appear to be very realistic. Aaaargh! this sort of argument could go round and round and that sound you can hear is another can of wriggly blighters being opened :ha:
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Stuart
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by Stuart »

Ah weathering... that's a thread in it's own right.

Steps back...

Pulls pin...

throws can'o worms (tm)...
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mylo66
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by mylo66 »

Build it how you like it when your happy move on, live your own life, worry not about what others do or say.
What you build is its own thing not the `real` thing. Maybe models should be thought of more as an art.
Monets landscapes are not `accurate` but they are beautiful.
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DavidWomby
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by DavidWomby »

Great subject, Stuart. I know I'm late to the conversation (only just getting going this side of the Atlantic) but I'm now firmly a "if it looks right from 3 feet that's good" builder. Partly driven by need to get things built and partly to keep them fun.

I like the result to look 'right'. How do I define right? I can't really. The Mbox F-4 canopy and Hunter noses would be somethings that don't look right to me and I have to fix. The Afx Hunter rear fuselage being a few mm too short - I probably wouldn't fix as the overall effect still looks like a great Hunter. I am about to start an old Afx Lightning in your SB, lots wrong with that but I don't think any of it will need fixing to look like a decent Lightning in my eyes.

One thing I have decided though: I can't obsess over does the model exactly match scale drawings and plans in magazines, books, on the web, etc. because there is no guarantee the drawings themselves are accurate. For example, I haye 3 sets of 1/72 scale drawings for Hunters - they are all slightly different in places! Apparently aircraft manufacturers themselves never did create full 3-view drawings of an aircraft as it's not needed to build the real thing. That discovery is quite liberating when it comes to deciding what is 'accurate.'

I'm waffling. I need my coffee. Anyway, I agree everyone should build what they want how they want but for me: basically accurate shape, not too detailed to be finicky and looks right from about 3 feet.

David
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JohnRatzenberger
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by JohnRatzenberger »

I have built the Frog Gloster 'Pioneer' ... after that, everything else is accurate.

We all go through stages and all have our own interests. I think "accuracy is in the eye of the beholder" is a good comment -- it's a hobby, get what enjoyment you want out of it. My enjoyment is the historical research that goes along with it -- I have, numerous times, spent way more in references than the model being built.

Although I have enough knowledge about certain items that could allow me to be a rivet-counter about them, I prefer to use that knowledge to answer questions from others about that item -- and I know that I don't know it all.

My main philosophy is to create a historical representation rather than an accurate replica. I do think chrism and others make a good point about sometimes just wanting to dig in and fix something -- sometimes the technical challenge is it's own justiification. Or to have certain standards of your own -- biplanes must be rigged, ships must have railings -- to me that's as much about the visuals as about accuracy, for example I'll rig a biplane but rarely double-wires.

I like my paint, camo & markings to be historically "correct" without excessive worry about shades of paint but I rarely wear-and-weather my models, and if I do it is lightly. My representation is more/less off the factory floor.

Scale has a lot to do with it, combined with production limitations. Plastic can only be so thin, at a certain point, in the smaller scales, one has to acknowledge that the cockpit wall is a scale 6 inches thick or the destroyer has a 24 inch gun.

I have no idea where I have been rambling through all this, but I'm comfortable with my modeling, and I'm comfortable with yours if you are -- it's a hobby.
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CementNotGlue
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by CementNotGlue »

If it was not for our demanding accuracy, then it would be a race to the bottom among kit manufacturers; quantity over quality.

My huge disappointments have been the Matchbox Hawker Hunter and the Revell Halifax. I had my Matchbox Phantom on display next to a Hasegawa(?) Phantom and they might as well have been different variants of Phantom even though they were not.
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by Dazzled »

Great thread and a very wise comment from John about accuracy being "in the eye of the beholder". I've been kind of guilty of being an accuracy freak in the past but I've come to realise that if it looks right it is right. I've certainly built kits, in particular my SH PZL P.7 that had been criticised in the modelling press In this case for being 2mm too short. It still turned out looking good and, do you know what? No PZL P.7 experts with Vernier callipers have had a go at it. Odd that. :roll:

The other thing with accuracy is whether it actually does look right. it's not only the old classics like the venerable Matchbox F-4M that isn't quite there in profile. A while back I made the unfortunate error of criticising the nose profile of Airfix's NT Defiant Mk.1 on this , I thought, open minded forum and I was attacked quite nastily by some people for even suggesting that the revered Airfix might have made a faux pas and stuck on a Mk.2 nose. I never said it was a bad kit or even that it looked bad when built (in fact I have one in the stash), in fact I praised it's build quality and engineering, but the vitriol that I got in return almost made me stop using the forum altogether.

So, if it looks good to you and makes you happy when you look at it, just ignore everyone else and build for yourself.

Hang on, there's somebody at the door.

Bugger, it looks like a PZL expert and he's carrying Vernier callipers. :shock:

BTW Stu, if you want to try posting a picture of an attractive scantily clad lady I'll happily check her measurements and I promise I won't criticise :-D
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jamesaw
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by jamesaw »

The obsession with accuracy took me out of the hobby for nearly 12 years because it got to the point that it took so long to build something that I lost interest altogether. My son brought me back in aided in no small measure by the quality of the new tools from Airfix. Now I basically build oob with maybe a change of markings to represent a particular aircraft in the right context (i.e. Battle of Britain). I dabbled with some of my etch to build the old Airfix Tornado F3, but made sure it was just enough to keep me interested (cockpit improvements) without taking me back down the path of obsession. (OK so I rescribed it as well!). In keeping with most of the sentiment expressed here I feel it has to be fun and it's all about what that represents to the individual modeller whether it's incorporating every aftermarket detail and scratch building or straight out of the box with minimal paint.

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Stuart
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by Stuart »

Dazzled wrote:BTW Stu, if you want to try posting a picture of an attractive scantily clad lady I'll happily check her measurements and I promise I won't criticise :-D
lol - I'm glad that somebody picked up on that :-D I would if I didn't think it get me banned instantly (which is fair enough given the ages limits of the forum). I would love to do it on Hyperscale though just to see the reaction. ;-)
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splash
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by splash »

Sir T wrote:
splash wrote:
The old Frog Sea Vixen and Matchbox F4k, both have accuracy issues that do make them not right to the eye, the problem for me is, I worked on both of the real a/c during my time in the RN, so the errors stand out to me, so I would try and fix them if I was to build them.
Actually Alan - as somebody with experience with the Vixen, I'd be interested to know what stands out with you as being wrong with it?
I recall when the kit first came out, I had just moved on from working on Vixens / Phantoms and was in the process of changing branches in the Navy to become a Missile Aimer flying in the lovely Wasp HAS 1, at the time I thought great at last a Sea Vixen kit, but when I built it I thought the nose or canopy did not look right and at the time I had no way of checking or fixing the faults, move on forty years and others on the internet have confirmed my theory, but still have not confirmed exactly what's wrong, is it, the nose is to short or the body too fat and is the canopy sitting too high or does it just look too high because the nose is too short or the body too fat?

My salutation to date, just build the kit, because at the end of the day it still looks like a Sea Vixen.
My work bench is starting to look like Portsmouth Naval Dockyard.
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Ratch
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by Ratch »

Ignorance is bliss. What I don't know about doesn't bother me.
Sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing :ha:
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by vacant »

Do you think as a whole – we in this hobby get too hung up on the issue of accuracy?

I noticed that while starting with a broad question about 'accuracy', the discussion has focused entirely on the accuracy of the kit. What about the accuracy of the finish? There sometimes, though by no means always, appears to be a disconnect between going to great pains and cost to get accuracy of shape and detail, and the accuracy of the paint finish. As an example, camouflage schemes that have hard edges are sometimes painted with feathered edges. The opposite of course, can also be the case. There is also accuracy of colours, though that gets us into complex questions of scale colour. Then there is accuracy in relation to what an aircraft (or anything else) really looks like. How often, for example, do we see every panel line flooded with black paint on real aircraft? As for weathering, that opens yet another can of worms in relation to 'accuracy'. Personally, I'm just happy to do my own 'thing' and not lose any sleep over 'accuracy' in either context, i.e. kit or finish, and I thoroughly enjoy seeing what others choose to do.
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Stuart
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Re: Accuracy..?

Post by Stuart »

Ratch wrote:Ignorance is bliss. What I don't know about doesn't bother me.
Sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing :ha:
lol - That is indeed true!
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