Amazon isn’t always the cheapest and best place to buy model kits and paints, even with their Free Shipping. Most times, the prices are increased beyond that of the online hobby shop or actual vendor so do your online shopping research.
Most resin kits on eBay are recast unless the box art is show and the seller isn’t in China. Best to buy straight from the manufacturer’s website. Look for MPC and Product Codes for eBay kit sellers.
It pays to invest in your hobby with tools such as a Second Hand clamp and arm, Daylight lamp(s), good brushes, gloves, toothpicks, great airbrush, compressor, etc. The Brand Names and advice on the forums is such that expert modelers really know what they’re promoting so please pay attention to the advice and the YouTube videos. This isn’t hype anymore. The quality of the art products is really Top Notch. And it takes age and career income to build up your investment so please be patient and don’t spend all the money at once for the perfect setup.
When moving your precious built Grail kits to another home or a contest, best to place them at the back seat floor or passenger seat so that they don’t slide around in your trunk and get damaged. The others can go with the mover’s boxes, but no guarantee that they will reappear undamaged.
PayPal and Credit Card is the best form of payment for selling and buying kits. You can get your money back if you’ve been swindled. Next best payment method is Postal Money Order Check. Every other form of payment would be suspect, such as trading kits or books.
Don’t get frustrated with the hobby. Maturity, skills, patience, and experience grow with age. Many of the professional modelers are in their 20s-60s. Teenager modelers shouldn’t give up so easily.
Wash and then Prime your model before painting. This helps identify imperfections and also prevents translucency when the paint is applied to the plastic or resin.
Model building is a multi-step process. The key is to learn to read the instructions. Do not rush from A to Z in one sitting or Beginners will be sorely disappointed. This isn’t a race to finish the kit, but a hobby that is meant to be enjoyed. Don’t approach it as work unless it actually it. It will always be there waiting for you.
Learn to cherish what you have, own, bought, and built. Some resin kits are cast in 100-200 copies ONLY in the entire world and never get reproduced (unless cheap recast). That s EXTREMELY RARE and even artwork has duplicates in the hundreds. Don’t throw away kits just to make space or because your spouse told you too. The monetary and personal value of some kits is so rare that you’re the only one who has one and will last for a lifetime. Don’t give your kits to someone who will trash them or ridicule you.
Not everyone who is interested in this hobby is a friend. Some look at your stash as money, profit, sabotage, waste of space/time/pay, theirs, or ridicule. Just like comic book collectors, guard what you have and don’t reveal that you have the First Edition of Superman or Batman in your stash. This is YOUR hobby, not a stranger’s…they can go and build their own stash.
Most times if you or a modeler breaks communications, chances are that they don’t want to talk to you again so take the hint. Let them go. Modelers are just people and many are busy or don’t have the time to chit-chat, or drift to other forums, or find other friends. Loyal modeling friends will indeed check up on you and communicate. Those that don’t probably don’t share the same interests as you do. Don’t gather a collection of Spammers, flamers, trolls, and ranters.
Learn to Sci-Fi and kitbash. If the kit is a lemon or doesn’t fit, save it for spare parts and Sci-Fi it by covering the mistakes, gaps, bad fit, and misalignment. Many kits can be saved and salvaged this way.
Learn to stop using glue/cement. It can be used in some circumstances but pure solvents make it easier to avoid most of the difficulties with glue&/cement-smears.
Using solvents and capillary action allows you to assemble the parts and fix them in the proper position, taking all the time you need, and THEN apply small amounts of solvents to the joint.
If the joint is nice and tight the capillary action will draw the solvent into the joint, the small amounts used allow for a short drying time. If the joint is not tight it’s time to go back to the dryfitting and fixing stage to get a good joint by filing/sanding or adding styrene strips to build up missing plastic (some parts simply do not fit and need to be modified).
I stopped buying cement 30 years ago, haven’t missed it once …
Also you can get silly putty at the dollar store. five dollars worth gets you just as much putty as I see in those aftermarket brand puttyies. Not knocking them because i havent tried them. But for surface area the silly putty works for me. Ill be posting some work done with it soon.
ethyl acetate: Ethyl acetate - Wikipedia
Sometimes used in acetone free nail polish remover, so if your significant other uses nail polish you may recognise the smell. SWMBO can’t complain about the smell if she uses the stuff herself.
Some brands of remover have a good usable concentration, others are contaminated with oils and other stuff which makes them useless.
Sometimes it is an ingrediant in laquer thinners, read the content labels
I bought the pure stuff in a 5 litre (1.3 gallon) can. Needs to be kept in vapour safe containers like glass bottles with cap seals that don’t get affected by the solvent fumes, bottles for strong liquor seem to work, otherwise it will evaporate over time.
I think I paid something like 100 USD for those 1.3 gallon (5000 ml) which would come to 2 cents per ml and those ml are the pure stuff, not cut 50% with acetone …
Silly Putty itself is not stable. If left too long it will actually flow with gravity. It will move away from where you placed it, or under that part you did not want to come off but now will (and may be en-blobbed in the mass as well). These new ‘camo putties’ are the same.
That Tacky stuff looks like Blu-tac here in Australia. I use that a lot and do not have any issues. I do not leave it on too long though. Some people leave it on for days waiting for the first camo colour to ‘harden’ before masking for the next colour and leaving that for days - that may result in some leeching of a chemical. Take it off guys.
Another good tip to make your modeling life easier…
Big sales and discounts usually revolve around American Thanksgiving and Christmas. Some vendors only have one sale a year and that is around Christmas. You need to look at their Facebook page for vendor discount as that is the main place to find such news. Vendor discounts usually run anywhere from 10-40% and last around a week or a weekend. It is extremely rare to find any vendor offering a discount over 50%. Some offer Free Worldwide Shipping instead.
Many Facebook and website vendors copy each other and offer sales at the same time of the year. (If you miss it, you miss it). Online hobby shops offer sales probably every weekend, but if you want to buy direct from the source, buy from the vendor.
So if you’ve been waiting all year for a sale, NOW is the time…Christmas time!
I second what Trisaw is saying and would go one step further. Sign up for your favorite sites email alerts, Squadron seems to run alot of of 24 to 48 hour sales this time of the year so keep your list handy, watch for their emails and strike while you can. I’ve seen Sprue Brothers do the same so I keep up with them. Plus they do other holiday promo’s. Sure your in-box might get extra traffic but the savings are worth it when they run a particular catagory or manufacturer special and the savings make it worth the effort to monitor them.
One thing I have learned over time, and I am sure many others disagree, is that using specific modelling products pays off despite they are more expensive.
There is almost no discussion on using good tools or modelling paints, however it is common to read about cheap alternatives to thinner, varnishes, pigments, putty or masking products -which sometimes render a poor result or even can ruin a model.
I estimate that the overprice of all these products together is at most 2 euros (dollars) per model, considering the kit cost is 40 euros and often more, and the time I spend working on it, I do not find worth to risk.
100% agree Carlos. People spend a lot on the base kit, then buy aftermarket, then want to buy cheap finishing products. I never understood that. I have seen many disasters from people doing this. Usually the best results are when you use the recommended proprietary thinners, etc.
That said, some proprietary products are not worth the high price they charge. MIG burnishing products for metal tracks is no way as good as Blacken it or the available blackening agents used by lead glass hobbyists. Trust me, my club did the comparison test.
Another tip - do not believe the hype from the Big Name modellers that sell their own products. “You must use my weathering and finishing products for the best results”, “you cannot get good results with acrylics, you need my enamels” - utter rubbish.
Yes there are many factors to consider. Cost is certainly one of them ; some of these products can be expensive , it’s up to the modeler to decide. The best thing you can do is talk to other modelers to see what the product is like. Armorama is a great place to start. Of course there’s trial and error and the modelers skill level.
-Your time is valuable. The price of a great kit beats all the time you might spend trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.
-Save the crappy kits for practicing new techniques on. Give the finished crappy kit to a kid, it will be appreciated and enjoyed for a short time.
-Be nice to everyone in the hobby.
-Keep the stash manageable. You might want to move someday.
Take care and stay safe friends,
Don “Lakota”
I agree here. I find that when modelers say, “I’m not in the mood to model,” one has to analyze oneself to see if one means “time,” “patience,” “effort,” and/or “care.”
Any level of modeling requires all components of time, patience, effort, and care in juggling one’s life and lifestyle. One can scrimp on one of the components in building and painting kits. If the kit is poor or cheap, one can put in less effort. If the kit is a Grail Kit, one can put in more care.
If you’re not in the mood to model, you can still research or hold onto the kits and admire them. Remember if you give away kits, or someone steals them, they’re still in pieces and have to be built and painted or else the pieces will not come together magically and present itself in its full form. That is why this hobby is only for those with the patience to see it through and to correct the mistakes.
This hobby is actually a learning experience of managing stash, budget, personality, skills, socialization, artistry, storage, endurance, resources, crafts, tools, supplies, research, and mastery. Don’t put in the time to model if you don’t put in the care and effort into a model. You can use time to research, but all models require a level of care and effort to finish and make them look great. As you get older and more experienced building, your care and effort will get better for the time spent modeling.
With the new professional pigments, washes, and drybrushing paint, don’t panic if the colors don’t match the true color when wet. Wait for the weathering materials to completely dry before they assume their true colors.
For example, I used MIG Ammo Drybrushing paint and drybrushed my entire figure. At first, it looked like everything was washed in gray and I thought that I overdid the drybrushing. A couple of days later, the drybrushing faded to the edges and raised surfaces and looked exactly like the desired result that I wanted. When wet, weathering materials have a tendency to fool the eye so set aside the model for a while, do something else, and then inspect the model again a couple of days later when everything is completely dry.
