Hey aurora-7 the same happend to me at walmart. It was a mom and son. I told her about gundams. I think she liked that someone could help her and her son, and the cost was right. I didnt sell her on a bunch of things that the child would have a hard time with. We must be ready to share the info with any child at any time.
Dale
Hey I admire any women who builds models, and why not, its not just for grown men anyway. [:D] I really admire you guy modelers whose spouses build models also. Mine likes tole-painting. [xx(] Heck, she doesn’t even do that anymore, but in all honesty, she made some neat things. My own daughter is currently giving it a go on her first project. All I can say is “You go girl.” [:)]
Wahooo! I love this thread! It’s nice to hear all the support from the guys! Not that I dont get tons of support from y’all on a regular basis here at the FSM forum. [:)]
My wife’s first model blows my dinky first 109 out of the water. She was a bit brave as well-- her first attempt was a Peashooter (P-26 I believe)…and she even did the rigging. I look at the paint job on hers compared to my first model and just shake my head. She said years of putting on nail polish helped her steady herself for painting 
Her second and current project-- a Hawk-- has kind of gone to the wayside as she spends all her time with our new daughter. I wait until everyone is asleep to do my modeling, but my wife can’t stay up LOL
Gregers,
I guess we created our own little dilemma, huh? I was thinking of excuses to tell my wife why she should NOT build one of my Hase F-14s. [V]
Jeeves,
Welcome to the club, my man.
Check out the nice P-51 by Penny Pierce in the latest FSM. Pretty nice work. [:)] Yes, girls can!
HEY Allan just tell her that last time you built one you broke a nail, that’ll stop her. LoL …Greg
Her attention to detail was above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen in the world of plastic modeling. I remember the FSM copy (March '93) that showcased her F4 Phantom II and displayed the open nose radar…just astounding detail. I can’t imagine how many hundreds of hours went into some of those builds. May she still be building in heaven.
Ive seen Michelle’s work up close. Amazing doesn’t begin to describe it.
I’ve never understood what gender had to do with building models. My wife is extreamly intrested in my builds although she doesn’t want to do one, just one push and over the edge she’ll go. She loves airshows, cars, tanks, Sci Fi. I never have to worry about watching a chick flick, she prefers fantasy, Sci Fi, and some war. Most war movies go over the top in violence for her but she loves the old ones and ones like the new Midway.
I bought her a 1/24 56 Thunderbird last year, her favorite car, but she hasn’t done anything with it yet. Most anything I have is the stash is hers if she wants.
17 year old thread!
And frankly it’s kinda depressing. Midnightprowler is I think the only member in this thread from 2003 that still posts here.
BTW: Penny Pierce still builds. She’s currently running our club newsletter.
Sur-prise!http://cdn-frm-eu.wargaming.net/wot/eu/4.1/style_emoticons/wot/Smile-hiding.gif
I’m still here.
Because it was marketed to boys in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. I’ve raised six children, four boys and two girls. Only my now-26 year old daughter was truly interested in model building. She went to club meetings and entered contests at age 11.
She was really interested in girly girl models, but those were hard to find. I eventually got pink paint and let her paint them as she wished. I got her a Tamiya Pink Panther. I wish the Girls und Panzers line was active back then.
I think that’s a record for zombie threads.
It’s a new guy who brought it back from the dead. We should give him a pass. At least he didn’t post a specific, technical question in an “Introduce Yourself” post.
Oh, no big deal. I tried to keep comment factual.
One crazy thing I saw there is that although it was started in 2003 and thats when most of the activity went down; lot’s of folks posted during 2003 while their “current” “member since” date is later than that. I know mine’s been reset several times.
Men and women just have different interests, there’s no point trying to sell stuff to people who won’t ever care. All you will do is water down your core supporters because they’re getting less and less of what they want. Bandai recently tried to make more kits for women and they basically all failed. Only Bearguy III and the Petiteguys got any traction. Most of the kits they aimed at women were bought by weirdos wanting to making little model girlfriends rather than women.
Nothing wrong with masculine and feminine preferences. Evolution made men and women different and they have different strengths for it. If a woman wants to build models and isn’t being disruptive then that’s neat. But in my experience women I’ve seen involved with models in public venues (game stores, wargaming clubs) are usually attached to one of the male members and is more interested in the social side of things. I’ve asked a few who barely seemed interested in the hobby but always turned up to the clubs why they were there. The answer I got from one was “You guys are nicer than my friends are so I like coming here”. In the end she annoyed me because if you got paired with her in a tournament you had a free win, which wasn’t satisfying. She never improved or got invested, she just wanted to hang out. As someone who values his hobby time a free win isn’t something I value and it felt like I was getting ripped off because the tournaments had an entry fee. There are ultra rare exceptions where there are decent quality women players and modelers but they are the exception. They tend to be pretty cool as long as it doesn’t turn into a circle jerk where everyones too busy blowing smoke up her butt to focus on the activity at hand. Unfortunately I’ve never seen a situation where more than 1 guy and 1 girl can share a hobby space before they start peacocking and vying for attention. Men and women are just different and dynamics involving them are going to be different to a group of only one sex. Some people like that dynamic and others don’t.
I do wish people would stop demanding quotas for groups though. It’s nice having masculine spaces to hang out in. Adding women just for the sake of adding women destroys those spaces and leads to resement from the people who like them. Sort of like if you’re a huge soccer fan, suddenly people picking up the ball and playing rugby instead is going to annoy you. It’s not that you don’t like Rugby, it’s that your love for soccer is now being ignored. Men need spaces where they can just be men, Women need spaces where they can just be women. Not everything has to be a big pile of mush where everything and anything is included. I like my hobby space to be void of the drama and non-sense intersex groups always end up with. Same way in a good relationship you and your other half share some interests but also have unique hobbies away from each other. Lets you express aspects of your personality they don’t share and you can support each other in that without stepping on any ones toes. A prime example being the great ladies who help run modeling shows their husbands display models in while they themselves have no interest in the activity. Their support enables their partners hobby to a greater depth than could be achieved alone. Same way I see a lot of men supporting their wives in developing handcraft or painting skills. Rather than trying to force the supporters into the hobby actively they do more for the hobby by being outside of it. The integrity of the hobby and the quality of hobby time would only go down if you tried to pander to people who aren’t really interested and will never invest themselves in it. Better to have a good supporter than a mediocre builder who will lose interest in a year and wander off to do other things.
Yes, women can be great at the hobby if they have an interest. I’ve been in the auto body/paint trade for over 45 years. While it is a male dominated field, those women who get into it generally excell at it. They have a finer touch and can feel imperfections better than we do, and turn out straighter work. As to painting they are better at color matching than the men, they just see color variances better.
Rob, some pretty interesting metaphors there.
Goldie, my gosh, thats so true. Women are so good at color.
To those who want to make more women build models - do you REALLY want your better half using your Xacto and other supplies? Taking a line from “A Christmas Story” (not related but useable):
Man: Get the glue.
Woman: We’re out of glue.
Man: (Fuming with rage) You used up all the glue ON PURPOSE!!!
But seriously, there is no need to enforce a quota. They do or they don’t. It’s not up to us.
But I did know a gal who liked to build gunship helos because her dad flew them in Vietnam. Even as a kid, I thought that was pretty cool. My best friend has a father who flew in helos into combat zones to retrieve downed aircraft during the same timeframe, but he had no interest in building models.