What kind of articles would you like to see in Modeler Site?
By Mario Covalski
Perhaps many readers know, and probably many others may not have heard that a couple of months ago we’ve started a Yahoo group to make a link of communications among you and Modeler Site’s editors. Owing to the problems posed by the spam, there’s no safe and/or legal mailing, they’re all under suspicion and luckily, Yahoo offers an effective media which is recognized as legal by most of the ISP around the world.
Taking the opportunity Yahoo offers, we set up a poll to know your opinion about what kind of articles you would like to see in Modeler Site, obtaining the following results:
Step by step guides for novices 17.54%
On superdetailed subjects 52.63%
Out of the box, little text with pictures 14.04%
Just a plain gallery 3.51%
Walk arounds 12.28%
This poll marked a clear tendency, most of them prefer articles on superdetailed subjects and here you have my thoughts with respect to this.
In general speaking, experienced modelers don’t need to read articles devoted to superdetailing to look for help to build their models, they construct them according to the image they have in their minds on what they want to accomplish, and at times they themselves are who write notes for other modelers, so we could say that most of the voters who expect to find superdetailed subjects, are not master modelers for sure.
On the other hand, according to our statistics, we may say that most of the articles read and/or the ones required in PDF format, are those step by step ones devoted to novices or so.
I sincerely believe that the media and the industry are bringing pressure to bear on the average modeler (who either has no intention or doesn’t have time to spend on developing his skill to the utmost) to superdetail plastic kits, and this tendency is increasing at least from the time I can remember, around the 80s up to date.
In the ‘70s, to build a plastic model meant to give free rein to our imagination and represent, spending not so much money, subjects from the real life we took interest in. By that time, modeling was within everybody’s reach, either speaking in financial terms or especially considering the necessary time-consuming.
Of course, there have always been virtuous people who, in spite of the limitations of that epoch, let’s say with regard to kits and materials, carried out incredible, pure class pieces, and be sure that some of them would win even today If they took part in a contest, but, actually, they were born artisans. I guess they would have achieved the same result when constructing a model with or without a kit, like our grandparents scratchbuilding models from paper, wood, metals…etc.
However, nowadays things are different and the average modeler, who lives in such a competitive world, where time is money and where he has to spend many hours in order to earn his living and/or reach the life level expected by the society standards, feels that he should build super detailed pieces, each one should be a real museum piece, and this, in my opinion, will end by killing our dreams and our hobby will reach a crisis point even higher than the one we bear.
Wasn’t the hobby fun, even if your finished models weren’t quite as nice as what you turn out nowadays?
Maybe, it’s time to discover the hobby again. Modeling should mean freshness, illusion, fun…almost all the time you should feel young and carefree…trying an enjoyable activity that can attract and keep new modelers, offering them a spiritual and emotional contribution, without asking anything in change…modeling should be the space where everybody can be emotionally contained when we feel weighed down and worry…
This is my sincere opinion, it’s not the absolute truth, of course, but this is what I feel after a little over 40 years modeling and this is my point of view of modeling as a modeler and as Modeler Site’s editor.
Best wishes for this new beginning!!! and see you next month.
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