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Is the Hobby entering and evolutionary stage?


Gerhard

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Most of those 1/18 kits have been attempts to grind more revenue out of the molds used for the pre-built toy collector crowd, i.e. the guys who were buying 21st Century Toys and the Dragon figures. That market has been slowly dwindling; many of the guys on the collector forum I belong to have been unloading their collections.

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I don't think so.  It's a very small niche market just due to sheer size.  I have already sold/traded away a P-40B and now I have a Stuka and a TBF I still need to move.  Just too big for my area.  If I had a tall ceiling in my basement, maybe.  Keep the 1/32nd's coming!

 

Besides, with the extremely high costs of shipping these days, shipping these models is now off the table.

Edited by ScottsGT
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I agree with y'alls comments. That being said, as we age and our eye sight goes the way of the dinosaurs, this could be a future popular scale, size be damned!  :lol: When I saw the topic title, I thought it was going to be about 3-D printed models. Can you imagine Hasegawa, Tamiya, or any other manufacturer, just selling computer code to input for a 3-D printed model! You purchase the code, download to your computer, go to your printer choices, select 3-D printer, and whamo! That would be crazy evolution fer ya!!!!   :o

 

:tumble:

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I find these larger scale kits are more "gimmiky" and lack the fidelity and crispness of detail evident in 32nd or 24th. I would put them more into a toy category than scale model.

Mark Proulx

Well, they are using molds designed primarily for big boy toys, so they will be toylike in practice.

 

Granted they are very accurate toys compared to other products.

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Well, the Airfix and Trumpy 1/24 scale kits aren't gimmicky or toy like. They are fairly accurate models that one could detail the heck out of. Just saying. Now, these 1/18 monsters by 21st Century and others, are toy like. But, I can see model companies making big scale models that lack nothing. Everything from resin to etch would be included in them. An interesting world we live in fer sure.

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Super gigantic static plastic kits are never going to be runaway best sellers.  Even most Americans with our huge houses don't have room for them.  

 

There's that point to consider, as well as what I call the "Barbie Camper Van" dilemma with huge model kits.

 

To my eye, once things get to a certain huge size, they start to look like a toy.  Something like a Barbie Doll camper van which my sister had in the 1970s.  LOL.

 

I find this an interesting point to ponder.  What if Tamiya or Eduard or WNW offered fairly reasonable prices for a kit in YOUR CHOICE of scale.  The bigger the kit, the more the money, but within reason.

 

So you have total freedom to lock in the scale wherever you want it.  Where would you stop? 

 

Depends on subject matter of course, but something like a 1:18 scale modern jet fighter would just be ridiculous in my opinion.

 

An F-22 would be over 41" long...more than a meter! 

 

Assuming price was not an issue and I had space for it, I just wouldn't want a 41" long F-22 model.

 

The aesthetic of that is just wrong to my eye.

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Above 1/32 scale is hard work for aftermarket basically to few kits and not enough followers.

We have a small range of 1/24th seat belts which is really slow apart from the Airfix Mosquito (nice blip) but I would not invest any time into expanding the plus 1/32 aircraft.

Bob

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