I blame Mike Rinaldi for getting me into this.
Modelling was not even on my radar until I spotted one of his Tank Art books in a book shop. It was one of those anachronistic but serendipitous places which usually have some specialism, maybe history or art, a few of which are still just about hanging on against the flood tide of Amazon.
They say that you should never judge a book by its cover, but if we all believed that, no-one would pick up a Tank Art book due to an entirely false expectation of forthcoming disappointment. So I flicked through it and I was, of course, far from disappointed.
Scale modelling is only a recent addition to my various interests, but part of its appeal was that Rinaldi’s book showed how it can combine two others — art and history.
Making history
Just about any period of history can be worth reading about, as my well-stuffed bookcases can attest, but the Second World War is almost endlessly fascinating, as I know that many of you reading this will agree.
So I started out intending to make a lot of British vehicles of the Second World War, and preferably pretty accurately, and bought a bunch of kits: Churchill, Bishop, Valentine, Matador, Dingo, Matilda II, Vickers Mk.VI, WOT8, Humber AC, AEC AC, Morris C8, CMPs…
Some were made; some were even displayed. A few ended up as tough learning experiences… But the remainder are still waiting in crates for their turn on the desk while kits of more exotic and varied subjects have jumped the queue.
So what changed?
Well, I found that my strongest motivation — and the main reason why certain kits are finished while others are not — is more the visual than the historical.
Sweating the small stuff
Admittedly, I can still be a bit obsessive about the degree of detail. But that's because, to me, those details are primarily there to form part of the canvas. Historical accuracy has become less important, and in any case is often impossible to achieve perfectly, so I have found that taking a pragmatic approach is healthier.
It’s better for our mental wellbeing if we each focus on whichever aspect of scale modelling gives us the most success and fulfilment, and that isn't necessarily the same as what we most obsess about. For me, this meant putting less stress on minutiae and being a bit more creative.
And it's why — after eight years, thousands of pounds, thousands of hours, and occasionally a little bloodshed and swearing and stomping — I’m still having a go. Nowhere near to Rinaldi and his equally inspirational peers, of course! But getting a bit better — and getting more from it — with each finished project.
(And just about confident enough that I’m willing to show the results of my efforts on this website.)
So what fires my enthusiasm is not making the most authentically accurate models of real vehicles from history. It’s the great creative potential for painting a lot of really distinctive and eye catching tiny things. And I chose those two verbs — making and painting — deliberately because they reflect the shift in my thinking.
It also didn’t escape my notice that whenever anyone sees my models in person, even a fellow modeller, they never say “oh, what a perfectly accurate Infantry Tank A22 Mark IV AVRE”. They just spot whatever happens to catch their eye the most and say “hey, that’s a cool model”.
And I know which reaction I prefer.
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