robertandy Posted June 22, 2010 Author Share Posted June 22, 2010 I have had lots of fun building Trumpeter kits. As fun is what its all about, I think you are really missing a trick not doing at least one. If you choose one I recommend the 1/24 Hurricane as one of their best efforts. If you want cheap, the Mig 3 is an excellent little kit. The overdone details look just fine painted and weathered as you can see furtling around this site. The TBM is superb too. The 1/16 Tanks are amazing. I hated the Mig 15 but thats 20 years old and I hated the Hasegawa Oscar too!Trumpeter are evolving. Thats the point. Their boxart is getting more exciting and their subject choices inspiring. Mr Songs engagement can only be a good thing. Remember that they have only been at this business for a shorter time than Tamigawa. I would like to say that I find a lot of this ChiCom bashing unnapealing. Engagement with the company is paying dividend, and that is what will happen with that whole country eventually. Our own John Wilkes has met and enjoyed the company of Trumpeters staff and has written of it here. Its not the 1950s and Macarthyism should be left there. We would not refer to an Israeli model company as Zionists would we? I have just read the Wikipedia article on Trumpeter and laughed out loud. I think if you read it you can guess the motives of the authors! Am I the only one who does not think the Swordfish is a Tamiya copy? The parts are differently done and layed out. The Trumpeter engine is far more detailed. Seems that it has become orthodoxy that its an evil communist copy. I am not sure thats true. All Glory to the heroic workers of the Wasan model company! Long live gratuitous use of the exclamation mark! Yes the Chinese bashing is un-cool and I hope no one thought my sino-phobia reference was that. It was a statement that if that was the reason I needed to check myself. As I said earlier Hong Kong is the model for the new China and I love Hong Kong. China will however, do it in their own sweet time, they are ancient culture and will not be hurried despite what we in the West think! Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrDave Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 Not at all, more a subtle dig at the "reds under the beds" sniping on other fora. One even suggested that Trumpeter was run by the PLA as a racket! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bails Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 Rob, maybe if you dig just a bit deeper into yourself you'll find that elusive answer as to why you find Trumpeter kits so repugnant....there just has to be an answer in there somewhere. That said, based on your comments, I'm putting my money on you being driven away by what you see as lousy box art. Suggest you settle on that and go hit that stash hard. Bails Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertandy Posted June 22, 2010 Author Share Posted June 22, 2010 Rob, maybe if you dig just a bit deeper into yourself you'll find that elusive answer as to why you find Trumpeter kits so repugnant....there just has to be an answer in there somewhere. That said, based on your comments, I'm putting my money on you being driven away by what you see as lousy box art. Suggest you settle on that and go hit that stash hard. Bails Could be, there have been some tempting sales lately! Rob Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveJ Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 Am I the only one who does not think the Swordfish is a Tamiya copy? The parts are differently done and layed out. The Trumpeter engine is far more detailed. Seems that it has become orthodoxy that its an evil communist copy. I am not sure thats true. No, you aren't alone in that. Those accusations were first leveled before anyone had the kit in hand and have somehow become accepted as fact by many. I was never convinced myself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LSP_K2 Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 The only manufacturer whose models I refuse to build is Lindberg! If indeed they ever produce a good model that I want, I'd have to consider revising my stance. Other than that, I have no predisposition towards disliking any specific manufacturer;… well, perhaps Testors! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrDave Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 No, you aren't alone in that. Those accusations were first leveled before anyone had the kit in hand and have somehow become accepted as fact by many. I was never convinced myself. Now its a heterodoxy! Next we shall prove that the capitalist lackeys at Tamiya anterograde copied the brainwaves of illustrious master modellers of the motherland! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ssculptor Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Bashing any group of people is just plain stupid. During World War Two I was taught to hate the Japanese and Germans. They were sub-human evil creatures. Starting in the late 1940's we were taught to hate the Russians.They wanted to conquer and place us under the yoke of godless communism. More sub-humans to hate. With the Korean war we were taught to add the Red Chinese to the hate list. Somehow, the Nationalist Chinese were upstanding good guys while the reds were all sub-human. In the 1950's we learned that through a miracle of modern science the Japanese and Germans rapidly evolved to full human status and were now our friends. The Germans became our allies in fighting the cold war against the sub-human Russians. This lasted thorough the 1960's until we got embroiled in the Vietnam War. Then the North Vietnamese suddenly dropped that pose and revealed themselves as being sub-human, unlike the stalwart South Vietnamese people. Through the 1970's the nasty Arabs were becoming our enemies by having the effrontery to demand real money for their oil, which the western countries had been taking from them for peanuts for the entire century. In the 1970's and 1980's we were fighting the expansion of communism in the Central and South American countries. The Cubans were the bad guys. In the late 1980's the Communist Soviet Union folded their tents and stole away into the night. We always had the Communist Chinese to detest but they were becoming more and more westernized and we were doing more and more business with them. In the 1990's we had a new enemy, the Muslim peoples of the middle east. Now we could hate them. 9/11 really brought things to a fever pitch. So now we no longer hate the Chinese, whether red or blue. We have too much invested with them in business and they own too much of the USA now so we are almost married. Now in 2010 the western countries are scared to death that the Muslims will take over the world. That is why hating any country or race or ethnic group is sooooo stupid. Yes we may have to go to war with them and kill a whole bunch of their people and they kill a bunch of ours. But ten to twenty years later we will be best of friends again and may even be allies in a new war against a a different, unforseen enemy, who used to be our friend and ally. "...And the beat goes on...." Stephen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cunumdrum61 Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Words well spoken and how our memories are very short. I married a communist, well a Ukrainian and I love her madly. These people suffered greatly under Soviet rule and to visit these former Soviet countries you can see that most of the money went on defence and keeping up with the west than on infrastructure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thierry laurent Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 And if we go back to the boxart question... I'm wondering if part of the problem does not lie in the box sizes!?! When you're looking at an half square meter box, you can see more details than on a Series 2 Airfix box! This means that the box art painting should be far more fine and detailed. This has also a cost and there are not many Shigeo Koike... I'm wondering if they should not try to produce digital images like Hobbycraft? Just look at their Sea Fury box arts! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allok Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 This whole thread has got me really thinking because I really want to like Trumpeter kits. In the past, I was happy to just buy a kit with the assumption that it will be accurate. I just can't do that with Trumpeter. In fact, I won't buy one until I've seen one built by (who I consider to be) a competent modeller. Consequently, I only have a few of them but I'm confident that the ones I do have are very good. And if we go back to the boxart question... I'm wondering if they should not try to produce digital images like Hobbycraft? Just look at their Sea Fury box arts! I was thinking maybe an anti-digital approach, say pastels with limited backgrounds. That would be different, effective and visually appealing. Just no photos of completed models please. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhilB Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 If you need to go down memory lane then the Airfix box art book is a must. Here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vintage-Years-Airf...8811&sr=1-1 Shame its not like some of those any more. Real memories! Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radub Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 In the past, I was happy to just buy a kit with the assumption that it will be accurate. And you probably have lots of kits that you still assume are correct, even though they may not be. The difference is that Trumpeter cannot possibly get a break and their kits get dissected as soon as they hit the shelf (and often before). With so much criticism levelled at the door of just one company it is easy to assume that they are the only ones who make mistakes. The answer is extremely simple: DO NOT allow "critics" make your mind up. You read what they say and make up your own mind. You often see such "critics" praising rubbish and shooting down (or ignoring) quality on a whim or possibly biased interest. Radu Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmayhew Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 If you need to go down memory lane then the Airfix box art book is a must. Here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vintage-Years-Airf...8811&sr=1-1 Shame its not like some of those any more. Real memories! Phil had a look on amazon, and the memories came flooding back!!! i will never forget the christmas morning i opened my stocking and unwrapped their Short Sunderand!! (pictured on back cover of book) now, after i've said my piece, can someone shut this thread? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kagemusha Posted June 23, 2010 Share Posted June 23, 2010 Yeah, I hate the boxes too, the cardboard is sooo brown, why can't they use white. Oh and the plastic they use it's... umm... just the wrong shade of grey, why can't it be a nicer shade of grey, or that light blue that the old Airfix kits used to be, and the plastic bags well they're all wrong too, rustly and such - and I'm sure you could take an eye out if you opened it wrong and believe me I've tried and come lose a few times - why can't they be more like the plastic bags in Hasegawa kits? Better yet why can't they be made in the free world ©, where anyone can run for office (honest it's true, I read it on the back on a cornflakes packet just before I woke up)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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