Grant_T

I have been thinking about this exact thing for the last few weeks. I have been very unwell for the last couple of years (like deathly unwell) and haven't completed a kit since. I can't bring myself to return to those kits, so I will probably give them away.

This layout is only 2 metres by 1.5. I built it to take to shows and so to fit in the car.

Beautiful indeed. https://abcnews.go.com/US/116-people-died-gun-violence-day-us-year/story?id=97382759 I see my last politically neutral comment was deleted and I expect this to be deleted too. This site is ostensibly "no politics" but posts like this are allowed to stay up.

Ha, I don't think my eyesight would cope with that.

Yeah, it's ridiculous. There is no chance of getting young people into the hobby when an average loco costs $400 NZD. Again though, Japan is so cheap for railway stuff.

Something a little different here. I have been slightly distracted from 1/32 planes for a couple of years by this project. The scale is 1/150 and so these pictures don't really give a good impression of how tiny everything is, especially the figures. Some of the structures are Tomix and Sankei paper kits, but a lot is scratch built. The rocks are carved from plaster.

We are very lucky to have a thriving local shop (Acorn models) in Christchurch. Also, I spend a lot of time in Japan, and there are still a lot of brick and mortar model shops there. Their big electronic/department store chain Yodobashi Camera still has a good hobby section in most of the stores. Yodobashi Akihabara is amazing. More generally, the situation in scale modelling isn't nearly as bad as it is in model trains. Hattons, the biggest online retailer in the UK has just shut up shop. That is truly an ageing hobby. And again not so much in Japan where the model train scene is still robust. The demographic is so different there too. Whereas it is mostly fusty old men in the model train scene in the US and UK (and NZ) there are lots of young people, even young women, in the hobby in Japan.

Great question. For me it is all about getting my head into a space where I have some focus that is not instrumental, but done for it's own sake. I'm mid career, and so this year has been ridiculously pressured to get things done which aren't by my own design. Unfortunately I haven't built a 1/32 in a couple of years just because I'm so busy right now.

Yup, I think that important historical artefacts are being destroyed because crowds want to see a spectacle.

Hey, thanks. Went out for Japanese food (Okonomiyaki!) with the wife, and then drank a few rums.

Wow. This is right up my alley. What are Gallery models like? Never heard of them.

If they get the money, that is fine by me.

Just made an order with Reskit. Slava Ukraini!

Bizarre situation unless we are not hearing the complete story. Did you default on your payments to a storage lock up?

Operation Enduring Freedom might be a topical choice. Combine it with with the bungled Soviet invasion, and there are a bunch of options to build.

Thanks for the reminder! I'm writing a new book and it is due with the publisher on April 1, so I'm working around the clock on that right now. I've promised myself a full month off after that though, so I will get to this then.

George... a less charitable person might think you were trolling at this stage.

Ha, that is a great question and I can't pretend to have the answer. The philosopher George Dickie argued that art is an institutional fact, and the "artworld" (i.e., artists, critics, experts, insiders etc.) settled the question of what is and is not art. Another approach is that art is an historical/intentional category. Artists work against a tradition of accepted art, and what they produce is intended to add to or to be understood in terms of that tradition (and might even repudiate it, as with DADA and a bunch of 20th century art). In both cases, experts (or at least competent speakers) settle what art means, but that answer might seem elitist to some. Run of the mill modelling wouldn't count as art under either of these theories because it lacks the institutional and historical/intentional setting that art has.

For what's its worth, in my professional capacity I think and write about these kinds of questions and have a bunch of relevant journal articles/books on related subjects. I've sometimes thought about writing specifically on models and modelmaking, but I have enough on the go already. There are several issues in your post. Are models art? Saying something is art doesn't make it so, and a superficial resemblance to art isn't sufficient either, because practices such as crafts and hobbies can share features with the art (artefact making, a concern with aesthetics, criticism) while lacking others (emotional or meaningful expression, intellectual challenge, formal complexity). I suspect that models could rise the status of art in some rare cases, but my models certainly don't! Another issue is whether the modeler is "controlled by the perception of others?" "Controlled" is too strong, but there are certainly implicit norms, and they are the subject some of the intractable debates on this forum (e.g., what "needs" to be done to a kit). One other thing is the relationship between realism, objectivity, science and judgment in modeling (i.e. the issue prompted by George's recent thread). There is a fallacy in art that scientific objectivity is a means of producing realism, or what people perceive as realism. Even in the linear perspective of the high renaissance, artists such as Raphael ignored the apparent laws of geometry because they resulted in images that appeared unrealistic. I think it is likely to be similar with models, and that realism is much more about convention than science. Finally, as for whether humour belongs in the hobby, I'm not so sure judging by some of the humourless and grumpy old buggers on here.

And finally a bit of progress. I gave it a bit of wear because the pictures above reveal NZ3220 to have been through a bit.

It's a bit blurry around the edges so far, but nothing that a strong coffee won't fix.

Thanks guys. This build actually won me my very first ribbon.

2020 has just under a couple of hours left for us down under (and to the east a bit). 2020 was well, quite forgettable, but this was a great online community throughout. I finished a few large scale kits, and hope to finish a few more next year. I hope you all have a great new year! Grant

My wife and I and my elderly parents had lunch. And they brought the ham thief. Then I had some rums and played my drums without the mutes on. My poor neighbours.

That's the good stuff.