Thank God I married a speech pathologist. My speech has been restored.
That said, these days I rarely critique your work, although I obviously am quite adept at critiquing others. Mainly it’s because in the past you haven’t been very receptive to my comments. But then I thought, “That’s not really fair to you or the other modelers.” You and others might really learn something from what I have to say.
So I’ll get to the BLUF – this ain’t your best work. And we haven’t seen it for a while. That’s not to be snarky or rude, it’s based on several factors. But if you’ll bear with me, I think I know why.
I used to have better than 20/20 vision. When I had eye exams they’d tell me to read the bottom most line on the chart and I’d say, “Printed in USA. Patent Pending.”
Then one night when I was 42 I was driving to Camp Bullis and was trying to read some information on Tylenol bottle. I couldn’t understand why they made something so important so hard to read. The next night on land nav I really had to squint to see the lines on the protractor. I was baffled. Then I finally realized my eyesight was going. It was quick too. Even then I was in denial for many years. Mister “Better than 20/20 vision” couldn’t possibly be going blind. My wife’s cousin, an optometrist, verified it. That was 2004. It was not until 2017 when none other than General Enzenauer, the State Surgeon of Colorado, ordered me to get, and then wrote me a prescription for glasses. It changed my life. My shooting got back to where it was. My model building improved. My wife got better looking. In fact, I can look at one of my builds and know if it was from one of those “dark” years.
So why do I think it’s your vision? I’ll point out some examples from your latest build. I don’t want to point out too many. The purpose here isn’t to pile on, it’s to offer constructive criticism.
First off, what I said earlier in the thread. The brackets look mangled. And when my vision was bad I could look at a thing and absolutely not see anything wrong with it. They probably looked fine to you. And the weld lines -
I wondered why you left them, after I tactfully pointed it out. Again, maybe you just don’t trust your eyesight to eliminate them.
And then there are the markings. First is the decal film. Now I know you wouldn’t normally let that go, but again, I did the same thing. I could simply not see my mistakes.
Also possibly toueched up by hand?
And then the sand backgrounds - I know you said you sprayed sand first, then masked it off and painted the vehicle green. And if you say that then I believe you. But it looks for all the world like the sand is hand painted , which makes me think you had a tiny flaw you wanted to fix, and touched it up. But there are brush strokes in the touch up. Nothing wrong with touching up, but again I think you just don’t see it.
And trust me. I’ve done the same. For decades I thought my markings were perfect, only to discover they weren’t. Case in point:
I am my own biggest critic.
The final thing I think you didn’t catch is where you removed details. To the naked eye, I’m sure you can’t see it. Hell, I can’t even read what I’m typing without glasses. Normally you’d fix something like this.
Just know that the point of all this isn’t to belittle your (possibly) failing eyesight. I fought it a long time - I still won’t even have a photo taken wearing glasses if I can help it. I love to see models as good as they can be made. That’s why we do this.
As an aside - I have advocated for the Opti-visor many times on this site, so it’s something I recommend for anyone, including myself.
I do look forward to seeing it weathered.