Hi, I’m freshly back from a 30 year break when the aftermarket for kits was a small fraction of what it is now, mostly PE or verlinden seats.
Initially, I started back in on my old Monogram kits in my stash and built them OOB and had the attitude that was how I was likely to keep building. The kit I’m working on now (Hasegswa F-86)I bought a PE cockpit upgrade and really liked it, especially the gages which I’ve never liked painting.
Now, every kit in my stash is looking inadequate and I’m starting to buy upgrades and it is both a bit daunting and expensive so I’m thinking of going back to OOB.
That got me thinking, what’ do you all do?
Small upgrades like a PE cockpit, more extensive like complete cockpit replacement like aries makes, aftermarket wheels, hibs, landing gear, wheel wells, or extreme like buying everything you can find?
You can quickly exceed the initial cost of the kit with all this stuff and I don’t want to feel like I have to but if I want to enter in contests (which I do), it seems like at least some of this is essential.
For me it depends on my goals. Will it be an all out effort? Does it add to the realism? Are the aftermarket upgrades better than what’s on the model? Is it worth the time and effort?
My Missouri build I went all out with upgrades because I wanted the best model I could build. My current fuel truck build, I bought PE but I’m not using much of it, as the model detail is as good or better. Or the PE didn’t add a level of detail that was worth the effort. It just depends I guess.
That makes sense, I’m thinking of doing a ship eventually, (the wasp class carrier) and found a bunch of aftermarket bit some of it looked rather redundant so I wasn’t sure.
Seems like you can really go down a rabbit hole on this stuff and in the case of my 1/48th aircraft, at least the first one I’ve tried PE, the parts were so small, only I will ever know they are there.
This is true. I ask myself, is the juice worth the squeeze? My audience won’t know the difference. I happy to know that I can utilize all those little bits of PE, but have the sense to restrain myself from doing so. For instance, going all in on aircraft interiors (bombers) then covering it up with the fuselage where even I can’t see it! If that’s what you enjoy, by all means go for it. But it is not my thing. I’ll put in if I think it adds to the overall authenticity of the model and think others will get a kick out of the tiny detail, otherwise why put myself through it? I’m having fun and don’t need to aggravate myself.
Exactly agree. I’m working on a B-1 that has a bunch of details in the cockpit and WSO stations and almost none of it is visible because the glass is smoked and there really aren’t windows in the back. I’m thinking of not even painting the back area. Though I might feel guilty about it.
Same for weapons bay, the doors are going to be ose in my version so why bother?
For aircraft I really like the Quinta 3-D cockpit decals,but don’t always use them,depends on cost.When I do armor,a lot of times I will go for after market indie tracks,either 3-D or metal depending on cost, after market stowage,and some figures.Ships,usually OOB as I can’t handle all of that brass bending,I did use a wood deck once.
I just ordered a 3D cockpit, I’m really interested in how they look. I only have one tank kit Sherman easy eight from Tamya, should I get better tracks?
I used a 3D printed and painted dashboard and pre-printed PE cockpit equipment in my P-38 build, as well as a set of sagged wheels. But that was the extent of it. No metal landing gear or anything else. Cockpit looks fantastic!
Yeah, I’m with you but I know traditionalists don’t like 3d cockpits because it is somehow cheating,.Hand painting never looks especially realistic to me, no matter who does it, especially in jets. The details in the molded plastic is usually totally out of scale, so which is worse, hand painting something that would be 3" thick so you can see it or a great set of 3D decals?
I agree with what has been said already. What kind of bang do I get for the cost? I really love the Quinta 3D cockpits but if the model is going to be all closed up and impossible to see the interior I don’t see the value.
I’ll throw another idea at you that worked well for me on my ICM Beaufort: scratch built detail. You can do a lot with a sheet of styrene, some lead wire and old sprues and the cost is negligible. The Beaufort has a lot of glass up front and it’s easy to see inside it. The ICM kit lacks detail but I didn’t want to buy the Eduard photoetch ($$$) so I scratch built detail for it. If you go to the battle of Britain thread you can see the photos I posted of my interior work.
I also use lead wire to make hydraulic lines in exposed landing gear areas. It adds a touch of realism for minimal cost and effort.
For sure, I’ll check it out. I’ve only done a tiny bit of scratch building, mostly to fix errors in the plastic or to add an antenna that wasn’t there.
Live tank tracks are the ones that are tight,no sag,like Shermans, M1 Abrams as opposed to the WWII German and Soviet metal tracks that just laid on the wheels,often with a lot of sag,see JS-2 T-34,Tigers,and Panthers
I don’t put a lot, if any, of aftermarket details on my models simply because I just can’t afford all of that stuff. Buying so much photoetch, resin & 3D parts, extra decals, etc. can sometimes exceed the cost of the kit itself. Do I really want to blow another $100, $300, $500 or more to make the kit accurate and such?
A lot of photoetch I can’t use because I have bad eyesight. If I want to improve my models in any way, I’ll try the “old fashioned” methods of scratch building and kit bashing.
When I built my what if future USS United States aircraft carrier earlier this year, I did not spend a fortune on aftermarket items. Some stuff I already had at home as I was collecting and buying aftermarket items from years ago. So there was very little I needed to buy recently. The following list is the only aftermarket items I used on the carrier. Anything else was scratch built or kit bashed.
Gold Medal Models photoetch hatches, fire hose racks, & life rings from Squadron.com website.
All from 3D-Wild website: Bulbous bow at front of ship, White Tilly aircraft retrieval crane, SLQ-59 ECM (Electronic Countermeasures) systems, SMQ-11 Meteorological Receiver on a port side platform amidships, MQ-25 unmanned refueling aircraft.
From Orange Hobby: F-35 & X-47 aircraft.
From Trumpeter/TAMIYA: All other aircraft.
From Veteran Models: Mk.38 25mm guns, Mk.36 SRBOC chaff/flare & Mk.53 NULKA decoy launchers, Two small RHIB boats on deck structure underneath the island superstructure on the starboard side, and Grey painted Sea Sparrow missiles on the weapon dollies on the starboard side of the island superstructure from the Mk.29 Sea Sparrow Launcher resin accessory set.
From MRC/Trumpeter: All other flight deck vehicles and tractors.
Main ship & flight deck decals from Starfighter-Decals website and/or leftover Gold Medal Models decals I had at home. (Main yellow and white flight deck landing lines were painted.)
Very hard to see (Especially on the F-35’s), but all national insignia roundel decals on the aircraft are spares from at home.
From L’Arsenal: 55 gal. blue painted barrels in the flight deck edge catwalks.
When I started building again in 2018 I had a stash of 1970s vintage Tamiya kits, many of which have since been re-tooled, some of which were half built. I was not prepared to trash them so I spent a good amount of time acquiring photoetch detail sets for each. I also decided to rebuild the kits I had finished in the 1970s and 1980s. I also began adding to my stash and adding more photoetch and resin detail sets to each. So I seldom build anything that does not have a photoetch or resin upgrade as part of the build. Even when I am unable to secure an upgrade set, I typically add some scratchbuilt improvements. I look at OOB kits as a canvas for other work. It is part of the reason why I am a slow builder and also why I have so many projects on the go at present.
Scott - You are right about that. I have photoetch detail sets for almost all of my kits. But I seldom use everything in the detail sets. Sometimes the kit parts are as good as, if not better, than the alternative offered in the detail set…and sometimes building the detail set offering is too difficult to get a good result. So I am highly selective about what I add to the OOB kit, but I always add something. It is perhaps an expensive way to go but since many of my kits are quite old and the cost long ago absorbed, it is not financially burdensome for me to go down this path. For me, my goal is to make every build a bit more detailed and to try and make a classic old-tool kit more comparable to its modern-tooled equivalent.
I’ve never been one to buy aftermarket stuff for a kit and I usually build most of my kits straight out of the box.(Being retired and on a budget)Now as I’ve immersed myself into building model ships I find myself “drifting” towards purchasing PE/3-D printed things to “enhance” my ship models. So I’ve decided to sell some of my kits in my stash to fund my aftermarket purchases.
A few things I’ve read from a fellow modeler long ago. These are his comments, not mine.
“Adding $400 (or more) of aftermarket doesn’t make you a better modeler.”
“Modeling skills are not talent or a gift from God, they are obtained through practice, hard work, discipline, patience, and the desire to learn and improve.”
“Adding $400 (or more) of aftermarket and still building a crappy model doesn’t make it a better model.”
The point? It’s what YOU do that makes a model great or not. Not how much aftermarket stuff you add to it.
Mostly auto builds, i add small things, wires mostly. The rest is in shading and whatnot. Like Whatifrebel stated you buy a 50$ kit then load up on aftermarket parts and end up with a 100$ kit. I do have plans to do a kitbash in the next build or so, that infact throws my own money argument out the window but hey what do ya do… i dont build for an audience, i dont build for exact replicas, and the majority of my finished kits get recycled within a year.
