Wow, they flex that bad! I guess that it would be better for them to flex rather than being rigid. Probably makes things like landing a lot easier on them since they can flex to absorb the shock.
Here’s my [2c]:
I feel it entirely depends on the builder.
It can be argued that to overemphasize some details such as panel lines either more or less accurately depicts “realism”, but IMHO, this entirely misses the point.
From my perspective, when I build a model, it is my “work of art”, for better or worse.
In art, the artist often “overemphasis” in certain features, as exaggeration, is often seen as better depicting realism. This is true in both paintings and acting on stage. I mean the biggest box-office duds were those that were the least hyperbolic in their presentation of “reality”. Go figure.
In looking at the most recent cover of FSM, I agree that the actual plane does not have that degree of ugliness, wherein the panel lines practically look like an exoskeleton, but, they certainly do stand out well under the photographic conditions, which is what I assume what the builder wanted, which I also assume is why he went into all the extra time and effort to do it the way he did.
I mean, if I built a model of Revell’s “Phantom Mustang”, this almost makes me wonder how many nerdy critics would say “that is not what a real Mustang looks like”
-well duhhhhhhhhhhhh.
I sincerely hope that the volume of critical comments I have seen here regarding this does not reflect a general “sour grapes” attitude amongst builder/members of this forum, lest it discourage any of our more imaginative or creative talent from seeking to see their “work of art” on FSM’s front cover.
At least that is my perspective on this subject.
Tom [C):-)]
I do agree with the artwork standpoint being taken here and that the modeler really has to be the one pleased with the final result.
As for the whole idea of panel line shading, if it looks good or not really depends on the techniques that you use. I’ve never bought into pre shading or sludge washes. If I use a wash, its thinned out drawing ink.
My prefered method of picking out panels lines is dusting the model with charcoal or graphite powder. coloured chalk powder works well for more subtle effects. Here’s two photos of an F-111 I did using charcoal dust. I think what I like best about the effect is that at certain angles the light will subdue certain portions of the panel line detail and pick out others. Subtlety is important, you don’t need to whack someone over the head with something for them to know its there.
As an addendum, if any of you have access to Shep Paine’s excellent book on dioramas, read what he says about depicting blood in dioramas: splattering it all over the place shocks nobody and makes the whole piece look amateur; subtlety is the key. A bit here and there, then let the viewer’s eye and imagination take care of the rest. I think the same mindset can be applied to the panel line issue.
Pretty much everyone uses black when preshading. If you went white over bare plastic or primer there would be virtually no contrast and you’d need an extremely thin coat of paint to have it show up.
I totally agree with this. The way I figure it, if builder X wants to “over-emphasize” the panel lines, so be it. It’s their model, their money, their time. Build for you, not for what other so-called “experts” think is right. If you don’t like it, I’m sure that there are just as many models that fit your tast in building.
That’s a bit harsh, isnt it?
Funny thing, I’ve always thought that the “clean” builds are the ones that look more like toys. Anyway, the great thing about websites like this is for folks with common interests to get together and share experiences and techniques. I can;t tell you how much I have learned and expanded my building skills by trying out some of the tips and techniques I have learned from my daily website hits. I for one will continue to use a thin panel line wash (usually Payne’s Grey or black) on my builds…again, I build for me.
Take Care.
Brian
As a former helicopter crewcheif< i have to disagree on leaving soot of the rivet lines, using a clean rag and the proper cleaner I would clean those areas, while maybe not getting it all, most would come off, only around the rivet head might some be left.
Alos at the national the year before in Phoenix, my son and I were looking at a model of a F-14 and I asked him in his three years on the Enterprise, did he never see a F-14 that dirty, his answer was no, he stated they were cleaned daily and if need be, even repainted at sea. Aircraft were to expensive to let dirt and corrosion take hold like that.
At the risk of naming names, take a look at Navyao’s F-14. It looks clean, but with enough accent on the panels to make the subject look realistic and not toylike. The close shots show panel lines, but the distance shot shows only a hint. Pixilater’s P-47 looks good to me as well - clean but not not toy-like. These look about right to me. Just my [2c]
Aircraft flex a lot. My father said that the USAAF experimented with gun positions out on the wingtips of heavy bombers in WW II. The wings flexed so much in flight that even those with the stoutest stomachs got ill and it would have been impossible to hit anything from a gun position out there.
Aluminum skinned aircraft are subject to failure over time because cracks form. The Hawaiian Airlines 737 that lost part of the top of its fuselage (around 1990) did so because the plane had made too many take offs and landings. (I was working at Boeing at the time and the Boeing News announced the 737 Convertible the morning of the accident. The convertible meant that it was easy to convert from passenger to freight, but inevitably pictures of the Hawaiian Airlines 737 with the Boeing News headline started cropping up all over.)
Aluminum has an unfortunate characteristic that steel doesn’t. If a load is put on steel that does not cause it to fail, it will sit there with that load for decades without failure or substantial stress. If the same non-failing load was put on aluminum, it would eventually fail.
Aluminum is great for aircraft because it is relatively cheap (compared to exotics like titanium) and it is very light. However, it has some disadvantages too.
Bill
I think the general thread we’re discussing here concerns older aircraft, yeah? Certainly a modern jet capable of Mach 2 wouldn’t need to have panel lines highlighted. If you scaled up some lines I’ve seen from 1/48 or even 1/32, the pilot would be punching out becuase his plane would just simply fall apart. I followed a similar thread to this in a car modelling forum some time ago, revoloving around highlighting the lines on an F1 car. Simple answer - don’t do it, for the same reasons. My simple, logical take on the whole thing is this, & it would be the same for most of us I expect: build the model, paint it, decal it - just like a workshop. Then stand back & think about what that craft does, where does it work, how often does it fly, what are the maintenance policies of the respective airforce, & THEN weather it accordingly. You don’t see an airframe fitter painting the inside edge of each panel with burnt umber before he attaches it to the frame. Sorry, that last note was probably taking it to the nth, but you see my point.
Don’t get me wrong, the detail on that AC-130 is amazing, but from a distance, it does not look good thanks to those panel lines.
After reading the all the debate it seems that two schools of thought emerge.
Those who maintain real aircrafts (BTW, I happen to think that scale aircrafts are also real in sense that I have to pay for the kit vs. if I dreamed one up while sleeping, although somebody might argue that a “dream” aircraft has a “dream” reality as long as you are dreaming) find it sacreligious should someone darken a panel, and the “OCD Panel Rivet Counter” school. They must make every panel a different shade of grey or the model is not up to standard. As for me, I feel an inspiration mixed with envy in the case of the FSM front cover model, I can only fantasize my ESCI AC-130 came out looking like that when I build it one day.
Oh, and the third school says that if the picture of your model does not match the picture you were working off, then failed you have. For perfection strive you must-- a true modeler difference cannot tell between pictures, M-m. [;)]
I was amazed by the detail that was put on that spectre gunship. Mw wife was a crew chief on trash haulers and I have been close to many 130s in my time, including #572. The last time I was around her, she had gone from black overall to a grey similar to euro 1. I can say for a fact that you can’t see the panel lines until you’re right on top of them or the area has some extra re-inforcement added. I have a feeling that this color is supposed to be close to the standard grey that is in use today. The article didn’t say. If it is, maybe they do show their panel lines better. I can’t say because I haven’t seen a gunship in along time. This one looks like it’s shaking off a heavy rain storm and is in the process of drying. As I’ve said, I loved the amount of detail and work that went into this project, but I think the panel lines are too pronounced, according to my experience.
After reading through this, I feel compelled to respond.
As with Berny, I too am recalling my days working on F-4s.
And of all things, I PAINTED them!
And the one thing that I haven’t seen mentioned here, is the fact that so many of these birds get painted quit often, (in my case,we were 12AF HQ, so they looked good!) and with that, the rivits and nonremoveable panel lines virtually disappear under all that paint thickness.
While preping an RF-4C for paint, I was feathering out what was paint blisters and chips on the lower aft engine door, along the piano hinge area, just behind the trailing edge of the wing, and noticed that with the feathering process, I counted over 20 coats of paint.
That’s,paint,primer,paint,primer etc… So with that I would say that most panel lines are not seen by the naked eye.
Build quality on everyones birds here, truely show a high level of skill and detail, but like what was mentioned earlier, if the bird you’re building, is weathered as it is seen in a photo of the real thing, then you’ve got it. If your’s looks like it has black stripes on it compared to the photo of the real thing, then you’ve overdone it, and therefore, looks out of place.
And using the excuss that it’s “artistic license”, then the builds should not be considered scale models, but rather “artist conception of what never was”.
I get the feeling, most here are trying to build a little piece of history, and if things continue to get exaggerated beyond reality, will future modelers look back at this, and not really know how these birds were represented in reality, and assume that the heavily defined panel lines were “correct”?
By the way, I have the HIGHEST respect for ALL the great builds done here, by you all.
I just wanted to share my thoughts on this interesting subject, because a friend of mine has highlighted the panel lines on some of his builds, and they do bring a certain amount of interest to the subject. It just must be used VERY carefully, as to not OVER do it.
Leon.
I think the same holds true for new as well as older aircraft. The paint has to be very weathered before the panel lines show at any distance.
I do think panel line shading looks nice from an artistic point of view. I don’t think it looks accurate whether you’re talking about an F/A-18 or a B-17. Even the old bombers covered with warty rivets didn’t show much in the way of panel lines 20 or 30 feet from the airplane.
Last time I was around a B-17, I observed how close I had to be to see the rivets. It was difficult ro tell if they were raised or flush at 20 feet. The fact there were any rivets at all disappeared about 30 feet away. All but the outlines of the doors were invisible at 30 feet too. In 1/48 scale, that’s less than a foot.
I have seen the cover of the FSM people are talking about, though I haven’t seen the detailed pictures of the C-130 in question. There are quite a few modelers who I will never match in skill. I am in awe of the super detail they put into their kits. I assume that those who super detail their kits are trying to make the most accurate representation of the original possible. They fail when they over do the panel lines. Which I think is what the critics of this practice are trying to do.
If people want to continue the practice, it’s their model and they can do what they want. I think we are just pointing out that it isn’t accurate unless they are modeling a derelict abandoned in the desert. Which would actually make an interesting scene. I think Shepard Paine did that with Monogram’s B-25 in the diorama insert in the old B-25H kit.
Bill
When I was at George AFB, we sent the Wing King’s jet to Hill AFB for depot. The first thing they do is a weight and ballance on all arriving aircraft. We got a nasty gram from depot because the jet had so many paint jobs, it was over weight. When we got the jet back from depot it had a very beautiful Euro II paint job on it. As luck would have it, the next jet to roll out of depot had the Hill Gray paint job. The Wing King wasn’t happy. He ordered that his jet go through the paint barn and get painted with the new Hill Gray paint scheme.
That sounds SO familier.
We would paint our Phantoms with laquer.If you had ever sprayed it, you would know that it blends quit nicely to the surrounding areas.
But when the birds came back from Hill, they were repainted with a urethane paint system, which, if you’d ever see one, you would notice darker dry edges seperating the camo lines (this was with the Euro1 scheme).
Well with us using laquer, you just couldn’t paint over it, like painting over laquer, without the correct prep, so with in a very short time from returning from Hill with there $20- $30,000 paint job, we were sanding them down, and completely repainting them in laquer. This was required, as we were always doing touch-up on the birds. We were basically doing depot level paint jobs on two complete Phantoms a week, and 5-10 touch-ups that same week, which would sometimes result in some of the touch-ups seeing over half of the airframe being repainted. We either did this out on the flight line, or in other maintainance hangers.
I could keep going with these paint stories, but I think I’ve ran completely off topic here.
Leon.
Human perception is interesting.
As a retired microscopist, I am always keenly aware of the differences in percieved scale: When I think about something that I have examined with unaided eyes, then at low powers of magnification, and finally at 600X to 800X, my mind remembers all the detail down to that level of magnification—the mental picture has far more detail than the unaided eye can see. To some extent, all humans do this. When you see your spouse, or child, or anyone close to you, at a distance of fifty feet, you cannot see the color of their eyes—but your mind does.
When you look at a scale model, at what distance do you “think” you are viewing the aircraft? Are you viewing the “real” aircraft at a distance of a foot or so, or at the scale distance? For many of us, the answer to both questions is “yes.”
So which is right: overdone (but to many, gratifying) detail that could not be seen at the scale distance, or the lack of detail that fits the scale distance? To a large extent, this is a matter of taste, of which there no disputing is. (De gustibus non est disputandem!)
But there is a consideration for the intent of the modeler. If what you are building is intended to be viewed as a 3D photograph of reality, then too much detail will detract from it. On the other hand, if what you are building is intended to be a representation of a mental picture, then the more detail, the better.
I’m not a fan of emphasizing panel lines on models and never have been. It just doesn’t look right in my opinion. However, those who do it have that right also - it’s their model and they can persue this hobby in any way they wish. The only thing that irritates me is a lot of the folks who “grundge” their model in what I considor an unrealistic manor and claim “artistic license” will castigate me unmercifly if I would use Zinc Chromate paint in a model’s cockpit when they believe it should be Bronze Green to be accurate. Can I claim “artistic license”?
In the words of qmiester…
Hey that used to be me!
Quincy said: “The only thing that irritates me is a lot of the folks who “grundge” their model in what I considor an unrealistic manor and claim “artistic license” will castigate me unmercifly if I would use Zinc Chromate paint in a model’s cockpit when they believe it should be Bronze Green to be accurate. Can I claim “artistic license”?” I once worked in the coatings industry, for part of the time as a quality control wonk: Not only can you claim artistic license, you can counterclaim probable accuracy in most cases, or lack of accuracy—let me explain. In a front line unit, if something needed to be painted, it got painted—with the closest thing to specifications at hand. This is from a man who was chief maintenance officer for his squadron in England and the Phillipines during and after WWII. Furthermore, the color of zinc chromate, or bronze green, or specular sea blue, or most of the other colors used, ESPECIALLY during WWII and Korea, varied rather surprisingly from batch to batch. This was due to production deadlines, variation in raw materials (particularly pigments), age, and how well the drum got stirred before the paint was applied. So their bronze green is just as far off as your zinc chromate—in fact, your zinc chromate might be more accurate, even if out of spec! Then there is the question how old the paint job is. Most paints fade with age, but a few darken, and many change color rather dramatically and strangely. Add to that the variation in exposure, and the only time an aircraft is wearing the specified colors is for a few hours after the paint has fully cured… Then, there’s the bugaboo of “scale color.” While some may believe this can be approximated, I’m highly skeptical for quite a few reasons, among them: pigment cannot be ground fine enough to be in scale; resin polymers cannot be shrunk to scale; film thickness cannot be shrunk to scale; and if you shrink the wavelength and frequency of the light used to view the model… No doubt you get my drift. Finally, we come back to human perception. What looks like the right shade to one person may well look a little off to the next. Professional paint shaders, using precisely controlled illumination, are largely being replaced by computers—but even the computers don’t always get it right, and (in the better producers, at least) require a human to give final color approval. Next time a munchkin castigates you, hit them between the eyes with the above, and leave them a smoldering ruin in your exhaust…