Here you go
Post away boys.
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My response to the “Psychology Professor”…
I have an itch that needs scratching now…
—mike 
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Of course you were innocently searching for Australian flip-flops, right?.. 
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Thanks! I forgot about this old thread.
I’ve been searching for and watching a lot of, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, so that’s why I’ve been getting all of those, ehem, funny ads
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My problem with restarting the Scratch Building thread is that I don’t have any new projects to show. Only the old stuff.
Angel you go first as you always have something interesting in the oven and I will follow.
Also, I appear to be wasting my time of late focusing on building the cornucopia of new kits coming onto the market. (and also finally finishing some old shelf queens.)
Hobby dying my a$$. (Oh pardon my French!)
. . . . le passe-temps modèle mourir mon cul
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Agree with a few of your assessments about scratch building. My two Egyptian T34 mods, with scratch turrets, were built because there were not any kits of them way back when. With Military travels, I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to photograph both vehicles…take measurements, etc., etc., etc. Today, as luck always has it, a subject for scratch building eventually shows up in kit form! With that being said, I think my scratch building days are probably behind me, but I do appreciate the medium to this day. As for the hobby itself, I look around and see that it goes thought cycles, but it’s not dead/dying.
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All it takes is one intrepid modeller sacrificing enough time and Evergreen to the gods for a shake&bake kit to be announced!
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Ain’t that the truth? I did a bit of scratch conversion work at one point in my modeling history. Shortly after those projects were finished, mainstream injection molded kits of those subjects were released. I have one more that I plan to do, and pretty much all of the materials that I will need for the project. But I know that if and when I do do that project, somebody will release that kit.
…(Not 3D but resin)
Your idea of the hobby might have tanned. Nevertheless, the hobby itself is still growing and evolving.
The idea of scratch building is to build something that doesn’t exist on the market by yourself, to your liking. It still hold true today.
3D modeling is in fact born from that idea. It is the evolution of scratch building. It merely makes the process more accessible. It started from people want to build their own figures that don’t exist, the basic of scratch building. Then, there are plenty of people mismatching various 3D models to get whatever they want.
3D sculpting is not easy. You can get some free 3d sculpting software to try out. It is of similar skill, but on different platforms, one needs some adaptation.
Edit*: Look at some of the 3d printed stuff I bought (either check my profile post or just ask me), who will ever make these? And to the scale I want? Most of the stuff I want available in 10 inches plus size and coloured. I have no place, I’m a 1/35 1/32 1/24 scale guy, I want my own coat of paint. How can you even scratch building these things beside forming them from clay?
To add more, bigger 3d prints are printed into smaller parts and need to be assembled, which still need the good old putty and sand paper. In fact, the 3d printed model is the reason I need more sand papers than with mould resin or plastic injection.
Either way, despite the different look, the spirit of the hobby remain unchanged.
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This is what is so glorious about 3D printing; Anyone-wants-to-guess-what-i-am-working-on-too-obvious-for-patton-fans?
Someone can create masterfully detailed parts for their own use. Then it’s possible to share those parts with other enthusiasts without the mess or health hazards of resin casting.
The time savings of having the speciality parts readily available can allow a modeler to focus more intensively on other areas of the build. Limited time is most likely the biggest enemy of the exquisitely detailed model build. Outsourcing some details can buy dozens of hours back into one’s build schedule.
Win, win & win more for all involved!
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There are many good reasons for scratchbuilding and here are two that make me do it.
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Its really satisying to make something with your own hands.
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Some things look/feel better in materials that are not always available from producers - some model ships are often “nicer” in some intangible way when made from wood and tanks feel better in steel for equally intangible reasons.
P
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I’ve been watching this thread and I figured that as one of the couple of 3D designers/printers/sellers directly active here, I’d put my 2¢ in. I feel that no, 3D CAD and 3D printed parts are not scratch building. I’m my opinion, I’m, essentially, similar to any other AM resin supplier. I just have a different method of getting the resin into the right shapes and I’m more flexible not being stuck to pre-made molds. But everything I do is pretty much from scratch. I have no base to design on, I have nothing to add to. I am simply building in empty 3D space from simple shapes gradually becoming more complex. I realize it’s a bit disingenuous to compare myself, working in the digital world, to someone who actually scratch builds something in the physical world but I feel it’s two sides of the same coin. Both start from nothing and end up with something.
One benefit to what I do is being able to add more detail to something that otherwise you might not be able to see. I can simply zoom way in on a part and add the most minute of detail where it may not even be seen anyway. Some of what I do is already out there from other companies. Maybe some is better than my offering, maybe they’re worse. I don’t want to say that without people like me, doing what we do, there wouldn’t be X, Y, or Z out there but in some cases it is true. I’ve made a design of a T49 tank destroyer prototype that, to my knowledge, has never been made in plastic before and possibly won’t be in the future.l Other people have made autocars or armored cars or ships or planes that haven’t been kitted yet. Will they be sometime in the future? Maybe, perhaps not. But they’re available now because someone decided to 3D print a kit. You can also test out new production ideas that haven’t been tried yet with printing because it is so quick from idea to physical object, relatively. It takes many hours to actually print but when it’s done, you have a marketable product right in your hands. No casting, no milling, no molding, no other production steps required if you don’t want to go through the typical process.
Like most manufacturing industry today, this hobby isn’t dying, it’s changing. Just like people said that DSLRs would kill the film industry (well it kind of has… But like the dying man from Monty Python said: “I’m not dead!”) or how CDs would kill vinyl, or MP3s would kill CDs, or any X new technology would kill Y older technology. It’s just a change in the way things are done.
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I appreciate your input as a vendor.
Nevertheless, scratch-building is not necessary building from nothing. Most of scratch-building, like some gentlemen above created uncommon variant of vehicles or figures, used existing models as base then heavily modify them into their liking. Same thing can be observed in the scratch builds subject in the old forums that they mentioned. You might under appreciate your ability.
To this, not all people with a 3D printer are model maker. There are people like me, using the works of other, then mismatched them to produce something they want. it is not starting from nothing. It is quite common among 3d printing games, like Warhammer/40k for example, some people merge a head from Halo into a Space Marine (fan made) body, or using weapons from another property on the figure. There are also many creators giving out free asset. Though, it is kind of a gentlemen agreement to not sell thing created from the asset others, unless having the permission original authors.
In my case for example, the author of my model create the base figure, then used some asset from other people to make his finish product. I download it, scaled it to the size I want and then then print it. Free 3D file Space Sergeant O`Primey 🛰・Template to download and 3D print・Cults
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I think part of the problem is that we haven’t agreed on terminology, as some previous posters have mentioned. To my mind…
OOB = out of the box, original kit built without enhancement.
Detailing = any form of enhancement adding to or replacing kit parts.
Conversion = modifications to produce a different version of original kit but still using some kit parts.
Scratch-build = a model not derived from any kit, entirely built from self-made components, and/or any kind of after-market enhancement including 3D printed parts.
I believe the crucial difference with scratch-building is that the model-maker is NOT working to a manufacturer’s Instruction sheet, it’s entirely built from their own research and their own plan for construction.
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I’d say that there is a gray area in between the conversion and scratch build. Coming up with a non modeled type such an APC or SP gun using an existing model tank’s running gear and lower hull surely crosses more into the scratch build realm than as a conversion.
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Agreed that’s exactly the most contentious issue, I was just trying to draw some kind of line between the two working backwards from a totally original/unique construction using no parts from any manufactured kit. If that’s the starting point – or rather the end point – then the example you used is to my mind still a conversion – a big one for sure, but it’s not a true “original”.
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How about all the ILM type sci fi film miniatures that they created? They often used combinations of various off the shelf model kits from the time to create or for components of their models.
I followed their example long ago to make a Y-Wing. It was mostly sheet plastic, sprues, and all sorts of parts from my spares box. But I did use two nacelles from a derelict AMT USS Enterprise for the main portion of the engines. Surely that would be a scratch build and not a conversion?
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