I wasnt sure what to make of all of this until I read the page on the site there with Peter’s story. Now I get it. Hey, it may seem crazy, but I know there are a lot of folks (yes, some of us right here on this forum I’m sure) who have handled life’s ups and downs in more destructive ways. [whstl] To each his own.
When it really comes down to it, we all do the same thing, no matter how serious we may be about our “craft” - we are big kids playing with plastic models! And if some of us ever actually built our full stash, we might have as big an army as that one.
And he still has time for a day job. Wow! Keep up the good work Peter!
I dunno Tigerman—he apparently has money. Where’s there’s money, there’s a line of women willing to put up with anything for a “free-ride”…the more the money, the longer the line…
Just a ‘lol’ at all the comments saying he is single. You know, as much as the world is full of those regular joes, so it is full of eccentrics. Even without money, all my artist friends have their social circles with very interested women.
If you look about ten posts down, you will see that Peter Schulman, the guy who built all those “ugly, badly made models” created an FSM Forum account a few days ago. So if you have questions or comments about his work, you should just ask them to him directly. Given that his aim was obviously to create large armies for his wargames and not masterpieces for a show table, I say they look pretty good.
I have always been impressed with the spirit of cooperativeness and support here at FSM, extended to all modelers at all levels of experience, but this thread seems to really have brought out the jacka** in a lot of people who can not appreciate that different folks build models for different reasons, and who enjoy their experience for what it means to them.
I don’t think people are being jacka**es, just being humorous and/or sarcastic. While Mr. Schulman’s work may not earn top honors at IPMS nationals, I suspect may folks who have poked fun at the size of his collection, and speculated as to his relationship status are to some degree envious of his MASSIVE collection. I know I am, and I did make a joke about mental illness! It is only because I see some of myself in there, and given the time, financial resources, space, and (lucky man) support of a tolerant and understanding partner, I too would have a 1/35 scale plastic army man battle in my back yard!
When you put your comments into context as you have done here Chris, kidding and criticism mixed together with appreciation and understanding, it comes across much differently than some of the one-liners that have been so far. I think you are right: a lot of us could see something of ourselves in this fellow.
What rubbed me the wrong way is the comments that this guy should get a life, that he needs a shrink, that he’s obviously single, or that if has a woman it is only because he has money. Realizing that Mr. Shulman was reading those comments, I did not feel like it reflected well on us as a community. It’s one thing to toss flack at guys you know, something different when it is someone new.
I am fortunate to have a great woman in my life, but she wasn’t drawn to me because of my appreciation of creating accurate and esthetic military hardware in 1/35 scale! Face it, modeling does not have the sex appeal of bull riding or stock car racing, whether you build for IPMS or for backyard wargames. I’ve been to a few modeling shows, and I didn’t find a lot of hot groupies hanging around waiting for the guy with trophy for the best OOB 1/48 Propeller Aircraft. (If I’ve just been at the wrong shows, let me know; I’ll change venues [:D])
I just thought it might help if I said a few things about my models and how I build them.
I started building them in the early 1950s and many of the early ones are still used in my war. Examples would be: A dozen Revell M4 Shermans from the early 50s and ten ontos from Renwal. In early 1973 I went to the Renwal factory on Long Island and bought cases of kits. Thery were cheap. I buy most of my kits now on ebay, at yard sales and from hobby shops that are going out of business. I am 73 years old.
I build the models to use outdoors so I leave of parts that might break off. Example: I build all the aircraft wheels up. I never use the decals. I have several thousand model boxs in a barn and most have spare parts in them. Over the years hundreds of modelers have contacted me for parts they need either to finish a kit of to use in a diorama. I always sent the parts free of charge if I have them. Same goes for the decals although I do sell many of them on ebay.
My social life is my own of course but as I said above I have been with the same woman for 43 years. My income is also private but I am not wealthy. I am truly a starving artist. It might be interesting to note that I have named officers in my war for friends. So many women wanted in the war that in 1992 I finaly started naming them to. There are over 100 women now in the war. Literaly hundreds of people call every year to ask how they are doing. I guess this does sounds crazy but it might help to read the story of the war.
Over the years I have recieved several thousand emails about the war. Not one was not positive. The negative stuff in this string is easy to ignore because it is easy to say crap if you don’t use your real name. The things about my wife did get to me thou.
I have all the old scale modeler magazines from the 60s and the poster above is right my war pics do look like many of the pics used in those.
I am glad I joined this forum and will answer any questions asked if I can.
Some people collect stamps, others coins. Some here obsess over details too small to bother with for others. Some people collect teaspoons, or sports memorabilia. I know a guy who collects PEZ dispensers, his collection is worth thousands!
What ever turns your crank. What’s important is that you find a crank worth turning and keep turning it. Peter has been doing this for almost 60 years, been married to the same woman for 43 years, and seems happy. Were that we are all so lucky!
Manstein’s revenge wrote the following post on Friday, March 05, 2010
I have a few questions:
do you ever model a piece for display purposes or are all of your models used in the wargames?
where do you procur your models—seems that you must order certain ones by the dozen—do you buy em wholesale?
do you have any close-up pics of your soldiers?
I used to build models for display but if I needed them in my game I would use them. A few years ago I gave all the display models that were left, about 50, to friends. My eyes are not as good as when i was young so no more building careful and detailed display pieces.
I buy many on ebay if the price is right there are many bargains there but you have to search, I go to yard sales in the summer and have found some real gems, online I buy many from scale hobbyist.com because their prices are better than most, I have found hobby shops going out of business and bought lots at wholesale, I have been a customer of the Squadron Shop since the late 1960s and buy one piece each year so I get there monthly updates which are good. their prices are way to high now of course. In some cases I will store kits that I know I will buy many of and then do a production line build.
I have no close ups of my soldiers but will try to take some. In the past if someone really seems interested I just send a few. Friends who come to see the war usualy take their figures home and I just make them again. I use oil based clay so they never harden and are poseable. They are simple image figures made the way I taught myself when I was 10 or so. 30 years ago I saw an add for childrens scupture classes that seemed expensive. I decided that kids should not have to pay to learn arts so I got a bank to sponser the classes and a church basement and started teaching free classes to kids using the oil based clay so they could take home what they make and re-shape it often. I have taught over 5000 kids that way how to make there own toys. Many of them are all grown now but do write and say how they are teaching their kids now.
I’d also love to see a close-up shot of some of your troops, even if they are simple clay figures. Another thing would be a picture of your stash of unbuilt kits or your workspace - there are some people with an impressive stockpile on here, but it sounds like you might be able to give them a run for their money, unless you keep that assembly line going full time.
[snWcm] Welcome to the forums Peter. There are a lot of great builders here and fun conversations to be had , and with your lifelong experience I am sure you have a lot to contribute. Thanks for sharing.
Just stumbled onto this thread. Just wanted to say Petershu that you rock,sir. It brightened my day considerably to see the pics and some of the story. I hope you keep it up.
Very cool—thanks for the quick response. A few more:
Can you detail a little more about how the battles are fought? Do you represent both “sides”?
Did I read correctly that you sometimes use fireworks in your battles?
Are these battles that go on for long periods of time “all-day” affairs. Do you camp out with the untis until the battle is completed or might there be a break in the action for days or weeks at a time?
Do you have any military training/background? Do you study military history?
CuriousG wrote the following post on Friday, March 05, 2010
I’d also love to see a close-up shot of some of your troops, even if they are simple clay figures. Another thing would be a picture of your stash of unbuilt kits or your workspace - there are some people with an impressive stockpile on here, but it sounds like you might be able to give them a run for their money, unless you keep that assembly line going full time
I will take some shots of the troops. If you would like email me your addy and I will send a few. Use the email on the war site home page. Hope your in the states lol. There are a few pictures of my work bench on these pages. One has pictures of my convertion of my old F-14A kits to bomb cats.
I will take pictures of the stash but it is only about 50 kits. The more interesting stash might be the barn that has all the empty boxs. There are several thousand and modeling friends like going thru them for the parts I don’t use when building them.
Wargaming with actual pieces, versus using a computer that does much of the work are two very different animals. I gotta say my hat is off to Peter just for tackling this on such a large scale, both figuratively and literally. Several members of the Scout platoon used to take over the common use area of their barracks and wargame with Micro Armor on weekends. They would start after last formation on Friday and finish up on Sunday evenings and have their barracks common area cleaned up in time for duty and some sleep before Monday morning. They would put down terrain features on the plain tile floor, painting roads, rivers and other water obstacles with water colors, and using butcher paper and some thing beneath to create hills and such. All in 1/285 scale (or whatever scale it is that is Micro Armor). To pull that off in 1/32…[t$t] I’ll go with eccentric, but if you can, why not?