I thought I would post this question and see if others have the same feeling.
What I find to be the most intimidating part of building aircraft models is Airbrushing. I always let my unpainted build sit for days before I can work up the courage to break out the airbrush and get’er done. I’m always nervous about messing up my paint job or having it not come out the way I want.
What about you?
For me it’s seam filling. I always worry that one will show up after the model is finished and on the shelf.
I’ll get more specific and say wing root seam-filling. Those are the hardest ones to fill!
Decals always make me sweat. I can always repaint, repair, or replace anything in the plastic or paint. But mess up a decal, its gone. And if you have any silvering once the clear finish is on, good luck ever fixing it. Nothing ruins a model like poorly applied decals.
With the daily challenges of making ends meet and performing well enough to keep the job, being intimidated by a hunk of plastic and resin isn’t even on the radar.
Canopies, especially closed ones which need to be blended in. I always seem to end up with particles under the glass once everything’s closed up.
Cheers,
Bill.
Not airbrushing in general, but airbrushing a particularly difficult camo pattern. Everything else I can deal with.
What always intimidates me is masking clear parts and painting them. There is always the risk of scratching them or ruin them with overspray, paint spill, or ruining them with the glue. Handling the clear parts always scare me.
PEs are another headake sometimes… Floor goblins, junk monsters and carpet munchers love PEs
Building pace consistancy…patiently working through the build from start to finish…I sometimes find myself getting in a hurry towards the end…rushing to just get it Done!…that’s when the mistakes start to occur. It is a part of building that is difficult to master…a self discipline. But once you do…your efforts are greatly rewarded.
I’d have to say almost everything makes me nervous, but only a few to the point that I put the project on hold like Rand was saying. Any major constructive surgery, where I have to take a saw to the plastic, makes me slow down and really think it through for a few days. Once you screw something like that up, it’s hard to recover. I really admire the skill of those who can put and scratch build and then cover it up with paint to make it looks like it was OOB.
As for Frank’s comment about the seams…I’ve passed the worrying point; I just expect that I’ve missed a few and will have to go back over it! [:D]
I second the seam filling - but only on the fuselage . I like building the old 1/72 Airfix kits and the raised rivets can be an issue. Leading edge seams are a piece of cake to clean up with a Flwx-I-File
Puttying and sanding. I hate it and this is where my builds most often stall.
Right now I’m trying to work on alternative methods to the old ways I’ve been using. If I can make this easier, I’ll get a lot more enjoyment from building models. I absolutely hate seams and I get paranoid about scratches and sanding marks.
Once I get past that and the first coat of primer goes down, it’s all joy. I love painting and airbrushing. That’s my favorite part. Masking never bothered me, not even canopies. Although, when masking peels up the paint that’s frustrating.
So true! I also have to conciously pace myself near the end or I’ll tend to rush to see the finished product.
In my case it’s hands down the canopy. Painting them is a real pain. I have free handed the one’s I have done, some I have not even painted yet. Only the P-39/400 kits have come with a mask and that was difficult too.
[#ditto] I worry that I will be destroying a lot of surface detail which will be hard to fix.
Absolutely nothing… IF you asked “Most annoys” then it would be filling and sanding… Followed by cleaning up flash.
Vacuformed canopies are about the only thing that I avoid if possible. I HAVE gotten better with practice, but its not my favorite part of modeling.
WOW!
I had no idea I wasnt the only that gets nervous when you get to certain difficult tasks while modeling aircraft. I dont know why airbrushing scares me so much now. When I first started airbrushing my kits back in the 80’s it never intimidated me and now sometimes it scares the beejebbers out of me. I spent a week contemplating airbrushing or hand painting my Revell 1/48 Super Bug. I did get’er airbrushed and the paint job came out very good. Maybe because I dont use my airbrush very often that it intimdates me when I do.
You know, I have a Paasche dual action airbrush that I loved using. It’s been sitting in the model closet for many years now. When my paint booth was destroyed in a move I never replaced it and without a spray booth I figured I couldn’t use the airbrush.
I had dozens of aircraft models waiting to be built and I had gotten decent using that airbrush when it came to replicating Euro 1 camo and so forth too. But, after having my aircraft packed away for so long because of not using my airbrush and not having a paint booth, I finally E-Bayed the majority of them away and now only have a few of the kits I used to have. I just never thought I could build aircraft without an air brush and paint booth. Airbrushing aircraft models always intimidated me, but I absolutely loved the end result of the multi colored camo schemes and the uniform look I was able to achieve. The subtle weathering I could do with lighter washes also kept my enthusiasm for these kits at a fever pitch. I really need to get another spray booth! 
The decals, normally you get one shot to get them right. Silvering, tearing, shattering, not getting them in the right position the list could go on forever.