That's the best title I could think of for this...

Earlier today, I saw a post from someone who posted pics of their StuG IV and it looks real neat, but some of the comments are what's making me want to say this....not to mention that a couple nights ago, I was talking to a buddy of mine and he was telling me about a competition that he attend a while back as a judge....
He was telling me about the thing about the event that stuck out in his mind and that was how rude a couple of the judges were to many of the contestants because of some little dinky crap, like the wrong track on the Shermans for a particular scene ( I can't remember exactly, but that was regarding two shermans, one in like Normandy and the other in Italy) and just a whole bunch of other stuff on a ton of other models that was just totally ridiculous to even bother to emphasize for an amateur competition.
My friend ended up getting so mad after hearing all of the remarks that he started to yell at the other judges for being so harsh and not only that, but for acting like they were actually there and saw everything first hand....After hearing his little story, he told me about an acquaintance that was in the competition, but after it, he stopped modeling because he figured most model guys were jerks....
Really, I guess the point of this post is just the accuracy in which one puts into their model(s)...I mean I can understand that there would specific rules to follow, like in a competion, which those contestants did stick by, or one of Armoramas "campaigns" and that for example, you wouldn't just go off and put a Humvee in a WWII diorama, but it's just the little things...like unit markings or certain details on a vehicle...I mean, shoot, nothings perfect...Espeically for like WW2...It seems like a lot of times, the Germans or the Americans or whoever just put whatever they could together to get the job done and if its something out in the field, they'd more than likely do whatever it is to get the job done....
For sure, someone will think and say it's just constructive criticism and that's ok, but sometimes, going over board and pointing out little tiny crap that's "wrong" is just crazy....Its like, why build a model if you have to truely conform to what is expected...it's supposed to be a way to express yourself and to have a good time doing it....but that is not to say that I don't appreciate accuracy too...
That's my rant....

RC

:-) - Yes - in a nut shell.

I obsessed about minuate for many years - and built model miniatures from that perspective. I couldn't figure out why the hobby was becoming less and less "fun"...

Then, one day, I woke up and decided not to go into the model room. I ignored the magazines, books, and stuff - and sat outside in the park. I liked it.

The next day, things looked different. Those minuate were still important - but not overridingly so. Getting what I wanted out of the model replaced that obsession.

I am obsessed - but for different things. There are some approaches to the hobby others share, other don't. We all can see the same thing many different ways. If I don't particularly like or appreciate what I'm seeing, I don't say anything unless asked. My friends and I talk about things I would have never mentioned prior.

I'm obsessed with espousing the fun of the hobby over pursuits of notions of perfection - be it scale, paint, finish, presentation. I feel the best miniatures have all of those qualities in equal proportions. And, if the modeler had fun building that miniature - then I'm there and sharing a little bit of joy too.

That keeps me going through times when nothing else will...

Gunnie

Well considering that this is directed at me (next time please have the hanuntas to name names if you are going to be critical) I have something to say. When someone posts their work for others to evaluate, and say what do you think of my work, THEY ARE ASKING FOR FEEDBACK! Should we just look at the work and blow smoke in places left un-said? Or should we make note of things we see, in a nice way of course, that maybe incorrect, or could be done better? I bet the builders in your sherman story would rather know what tracks were correct than to remain in blissfull ignorance. How else are we to improve as modlers and historians if we cannot learn from out peers. If you are not interested in feedback, or rebuttals, don't post.

Personally I think you need to be careful, you may fall off that high horse of yours and get hurt.

The Thread in question: https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/53269&page=1

The first model that I built when coming back into the hobby was Italeri's DUKW. I bought it because I thought it was a pretty neat looking piece. Then I started reading the reviews about it that said this was wrong and that was wrong about it. I was pretty bummed about the lack of authenticity, but built it anyway, straight OOB. I had a blast doing it! And I thought it looked great. (It probably didn't but hey, my opinion's jaded. )

I want to do the best job that I can when building a model. That's the extent of my obsessiveness. I mostly do OOB and I've learned to live with the innacuracies that the model makers produce. I read in another thread here where someone said "If it looks like a Panzer, it must be a Panzer." That's my feeling exactly.

At the same time, I think it's great that there are those out there that go to extreme lengths to make their models as historically accurate as they can be. I wish that I had their patience and skill. At this point though, I don't.

From what I've read on this site, the replies and criticisms are overwhelmingly positive. I've seen a few pics of peoples models that I didn't think were particularly good. But the replies were almost always something like "Great job. You might want to tweak..." or "Looks good! Next time you might want to try..." I don't think I've ever read anything harsh here about any piece anyone's posted. That's why I continue to come here.

I have been modelling for a short time, compared to most .... slightly more than 4 years. In that time my opinions on models/modelling, what I want to achieve, and to what I feel "having fun" is, have all changed a lot. But 4 years is a relatively short period and I can still adhear to all sides of each arguement.
One thing I always appreciated was the fact I did get a lot of constructive criticism. At home, my wife always shows interest and offers opinions which Ive encouraged, but all the CC Ive recieved here has helped me improve, pushed me to be better, and also rightified small mistakes I made.
When I post a model, I personally want to be informed of omissions, mistakes, areas that need improving, etc, etc. Im not denying its nice to get favourable comments, but I dont think the perfect model has been built yet.
Its one opinion to say "pointing out little tiny crap that's "wrong" is just crazy" but its also an opinion to want to have them pointed out, so they can be rectified or the information used the next time. It would be fair to say quite a few modellers have their fun this way.
But one point you made, I would not stand for either, is plain rude comments. Being rude, abrupt etc. should not be mistaken for being constructive .. its not.
In the thread you are talking about, I believe the points made were genuinly constructive, and even an apology was offered where the wrong information was presented.
Another perspective from looking at a thread like this, is that although the advice is geared towards the modeller concerned, the reader has the opportunity to be informed and learn from the CC also. I personally love it when a thread becomes a topic for interesting debate and knowledge.


But when alls said and done I have to 100% agree with both your comments so far ... if its not fun or pleasureable, its not worth it.

I'll add that this is a community of over 7,000 members and it covers a vast array of cultures, countires, personalities, and model building skill sets.

The number one goal that is always echoed on this site is to "model to have fun". You get the joy of defining fun. If fun is to count every rivet - great, if fun its to do a build in 2 days - awsome. That is in my honest opinion - wonderful. It's a hobby - not work.

I have been here from almost day one and have seen a lot of great models, great topics, and great people. I have been critiqued by the best. That is afterall, how we get better.
A benefit to the internet and a forum such as this is that we can read responses and we get to choose which ones we 'take to heart' and which ones we can let go.
When you open up your work to over 7000 people you aren't going to please everyone.

I truely believe that there is a difference in focus between a competition judge and any post on this forum. My deep down belief is that competition judges nit-pick to exclude while members here nit-pick (or criticise) to help and improve the requestors skills. A judge at a competition must rationalize why he picks one model over another to win the trophy. In his/her mind he must find differences/faults with one over another to make his decision 'right'. There are no such rules or rationalities on this site. The only reason a member has to offer criticism is to help out from thier past experiences. No one is winning a trophy on the RRB and last time I checked every completed submission in a campaign gets a ribbon.

I am getting down off my soap box now to go and put another burnt umber wash on my cobblestone street....

I build what I want, how I want and if somebody doesn't like it, so be it. However, If I ask for feedback then I'm open game. Everybody has an opinion on "how " a vehicle whether it be a tank, truck, arty piece etc should look and no two are probably the same. Its all in how we as builders interpret what we see and percieve to be "correct". That being said I'm off to build my all silver with pink stripes Tiger that somebody mentioned earlier. How he got a look at it I don't know! Its a hobby folks. Were supposed to enjoy this remember? "Q"

Arvo,Ramcke,,just spent an hour try to be tactful to people on another similar type question as i can only use one finger....much of when we are asked to critique other poeples effort we some times forget that we are dealing with a persons ego, easily bruised, their opinon right or wrong,.. against that of our own and so on and I must say Ive been guilty of both sides of the fence and now having been around a few years Ive found that niether realy count to much you take it on the chin and we real listen to what people say and not what we think they have said in both counts ( with a smile) we would get on.. Im tied now and am going to watch my other great interest RUGBY UNION..you miss tackle you,ve missed him ego nothing...you just make sure you dont miss him next time..
tied finger Phil..

And while Matthew is building a silver and pink stripe Tiger, Scotty is washing his burnt umber, I'll be picking the perfect FS# pink for my Sheridan ...... Of course I won't ask for feedback when I post photos of it, nor put it in RRB, or CC..... :-) :-) :-)
Well I'm off to burn my sienna.......

Of course, I wouldn't think of entering a contest...... with my pink tanks......and I actually do post in the RRB and CC..... but sometimes it's fun to give heart attacks to purist.

Hi guys,

Before i found this website, i posted my work on a ww2 site that doesnt emphasize on modelling.

Of cause, the comments i got there was always "Good work!", "nice looking tank", "wow", 'Looking good" etc etc and my tank was crap back in those days when i started modelling. Of cause, my skills did not improve, cause they did not give me any CCs.

Now i found armorama and my work improved tremendously! Thanks to the friendly CCs given by fellow members here. I know there are some, (no names here) who give out rather, rude CCs which are uncalled for but it is still [C]onstructive [C]riticism!

I didn't have time to read all of your guys' comments...so forgive me if I miss something...

I guess I just posted this cuz it has been bugging me after talking to my friend what the poor contestants had to hear...I mean, if you're in a contest and you get critiqued, I'm not against that at all. I'm just against the manner in which it is said... for at least live "novices"...it you're like some super model dude that can do just about anything, then maybe real stern and serious critizism is good and necessary. On the whole, I seriously don't want to get off as some touchy-feely person, but I mean seriously, I have to deal with all sorts of people all day at work...I can't tell you how many times a day I have to deal with some threat of getting sued for some mickey mouse little thing....I need to stop right there, cuz I got a lot to rant and rave about but again, I'm not against any critizism at all because it does help us improve as people and we learn from it because in reality, we never do stop learning, but to some people, that just doesn't really work...that's all I'm really trying to say... And though many my ask your opinions, as a few of you have obviously pointed out when I scanned through the comments, and acting like I was totally oblivous to it, again, its just the manner in which it is approached...that's all...now, i got to get to bed! I'm gonna go and sell me some real estate, en la manana!

RC

Getting back to the issue of judge behavior at shows, it wasn't clear if what the original poster was talking about was people overhearing judges conversation, or judges being harsh directly to the modelers.

When you judge at a show, you have to converse. And when you are judging otherwise really close models, you may have to get down to nitpicking.

I don't know enough about the original situation to really say whether or not it was inappropriate. But if someone got that soured on the hobby from just a few other people with bad attitudes, maybe he was a little too sensitive to begin with.

I agree with Slodder in that you build for yourself and not others.
To me, if you want to put a Hummer in the middle of a WWII diorama for your own enjoyment, then do it!!!! It may not be accurate, but who cares?????? That's the beauty of building models, doing it the way that YOU want to do it.

I suppose all of us are obsessive - to one degree or another... I certainly am.

My obsessions - in no particular order...

1) Criticism for the sake of criticism

following on from 1)

2) Lack of constructive criticism. the "Gee, that is the best model in the Multiverse" type comment in the RRB - pointless, unhelpful and self-defeating.

3) Self-promotion and posting for rank...

4) Posting news stories in the forums..

5) People who can't keep ON-TOPIC ..


In the purely modelling...

6) The conservative nature of modellers. Take the vehement opposition to 1/48th scale for example. Don't knock it if you haven't tried it.

7) Lack of adequate research.Considering what is available in both reference books and on the 'web, the reluctance of many modellers to make any effort to do the most basic research or ask a question...

8) The Allied vs Axis debate along with the (recent) DML vs Tamiya debate

9) The inability of many modellers to accept new techniques or suggestions. Curiously enough I saw this at a local modelling show a few months ago. Some really nice work, but some models reminded me of stuff which would have been seen at shows in the 1970s...

Of course my ULTIMATE Obsession, is to be opinionated... and (as a sidebar), to build every possible version of the 251 series....Jim

Haha, I built my models the way I like it, and that's for the biggest part OOTB.

Things like a British style antenna on a US Sherman won't really bother me. Only huge faults in the kit may be corrected by me.

I also won't really do much research on a subject. Why should I if I don't enjoy it? My reserach sticks to camouflage schemes/colours to use, landscape pics as reference for diorama's and I try to find nice stories about the tank/vehicle I've just modelled as inspiration....but I won't look is the front armor is really in the right angle.

I like the constructive critism I can get here....and I'll use it to improve my skills...but not really my accuracy.

What I don't like are also the people in for instance model magazines who tell you NEED about 500 after market sets to make something "decent" out of a kit. Come on....you may be able to make a better model, but does that mean that OOTB are all bad?

This is really the kind of subject you can keep discussing

Well, when I've been on courses about developing training methods, I've been told that feedback should generally only be given when asked for. And by entering competitions then you are asking for feedback.

But when feedback is given, it should be constructive and properly explained. Just saying 'wrong' isn't sufficient. There is a huge range of references out there and a wide range of experience here that can be tapped into.

By all means build as you please, but be prepared for people to say 'Hmmmmm'

I really liked my Firefly IIC built on the Italeri M4A1 hull too Then I got Shermanitis.....

Hi,

the main reason why I took up this hobby is because I love the challenge of transforming a plastic kit into something that really looks armor, metal, with the weathering effects.
That's what i loved.

But the bottomline is, do what i feel.

Cheers!

As many of you know I can be called obsessive about accuracy in models. But it doesn't mean that every inaccurate model is worthless in my eyes! It all depends on what every modeler is looking for in this hobby.

There are modelers like myself who like to have their models as accurate as possible. We actually like to hear all possible comments about accuracy of our models. This means that when we make mistakes and make some, even tiny detail wrong - we really want to know about it!

Then there are obviously modelers who enjoy the pure fun of building models out of the box and don't care for accuracy at all. This is just as good approach as mine.

And of course majority of modelers are somewhere in between these two extremities.
The point is to clearly define what your goal in modeling is and make it clear for those to whom you show your models. E.g. if you don't make it clear that you build OOTB and don't care for accuracy, don't be surprised to receive comments about the accuracy in your creation!

For example my main interest is modern armor and those models I try to make as accurate as possible. But right now I work on Tiger I model and I've deliberately chosen to build it OOTB. When I ever decide to show this model on Armorama, I will clearly mark it as OOTB build, so accuracy comments would obviously be out of place, as they will be addressed more towards the kit than my model built from it.

I don't mind if modeler builds inaccurate model, applies inaccurate camouflage and marking and puts the model in inappropiate scenery. As long as the modeler admits that he doesn't care for accuracy and had fun building the kit - it is fine with me! But my attitude towards model kit manufacturers and particularly aftermarket manufacturers is completely different - from those I expect adequate effort to make their products accurate. In todays world it is not that difficult to get access to good references about almost any modeling subject.
Note one thing: accurate kit will be well received by ALL modelers. Poorly researched kit will only be well received by those modelers who don't care for accuracy much (sure, I know that it means majority of all modelers). Doesn't it seem logical that manufacturers should do their best to make their products attractive for ALL modelers?!... And from technological point of view making the kit accurate is often just as easy as making it inaccurate and doesn't necessarily cost more.

Pawel

I too am a great beliver in the "do what feels good" school.

on IDF subjects I tend to accurize the little faults because first I have reference and seconed because this subject is close to my heart.

on WWII stuff I'll probably bother less because I dont have the means and generally want the model to look like a Sherman/Stug.III/Tiger etc...

putting that aside I do care to have the correct type of track on a given Sherman but I can't understand all the guys who actually measure up their models against plans and bash a model for being 1.5mm too short. if it looks like it than I dont care if the real thing is 3 scale Cm wider.

That's actually my approach to accuracy too. As long as all the proportions are right, shapes are correct, all details are where they are supposed to be and look like they should and model looks fine next to others in the same scale - I also don't care if the general dimensions are a millimeter or three off.

Pawel

I am fairly obsessed with look rather than accuracy. However, having said that, I do fnd it difficult to accept the 'sloppiness' of many of the kit manufacturers.

20 or 30 years ago, many of the mistakes which were made, were, to a certain extent, understandable or forgiveable. Now i'm not so sure. With the availability of reference material - both virtual and physical, I find it difficult to accept the MAJOR errors which are committed.

Nor do I find much sympathy with the 'anything goes' school of thought either. Why people still insist on building some of the garbage which is available (when there is a modern alternative available) is frankly beyond my comprehenson. I do understand that many of us are on a limited budget - what I fail to understand is those (as an example) who will buy the old Tamiya 88, when for just a few dollars more, will have the choice of two SUPERB kits in 1/35th scale. Nostalgia? Bloody.mindedness? or Brand loyalty? Yes it looks like an 88 but personally, I would find little satisfaction in the exercise....

The 'rivet-counters' are if anything worse. Not those who want an accurate representation of a prototype, but those who are so 'anally-challenged' tha their whole reason for existence is to belittle and to alienate those who have put a great deal of effort into their work. Every hobby show has them, every LHS has one hiding in the shadows. These individuals are the worst possible advert for the hobby...

Modelling is a big world - lots of space for everyone and lets be honest here, if we weren't obsessed, we wouldn't be modelling...Jim :-)

Frankly, no....Jim

However, I do think it would have better to communicate this to the Moderator of this forum...

The title of this thread certainly is misleading... there was nothing obsessive about the comments by members in the original post.

Constructive criticism was made by more than just Sticky... and the advice was taken in good spirit by Sensei...

Much-ado about nothing really! Get a life!

Rudi

John,
Posting someone elses profanity and (I agree) rude remarks is still a violation of the forum rules. That post was removed. Other than that you have done nothing wrong in this whole affair.

RC,
This is a very frequent topic on all modeling sites and one that ussually ends up pretty much like it has. If you didn't want John or anyone else taking offense to your remarks you probably shouldn't have specified which topic you were talking about. AND since the original poster agreed that he didn't see those comments as being negative I don't see why you used that topic as an example. He posted looking for feedback. He got it. He was happy.

Why aren't you? And when you answer that question to yourself maybe you will realise that your remarks were a bit out-of-line.

Jim