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Colour me stunned.
Fact, in 10 years online, yes, I have noticed that the worst people on the internet are actually grumpy old men. Maybe forums should treat people over 40 and male the same way we treat kids under 13.
Sure some of you 'boys' are still little boys :)
But I sure am disappointed in the OP.
And I found that 'Death of the modeler' thread.
Would you like to meet an actual example of 'special'.
Meet Paul Gentile.
http://www.gentilecollection.com/collection.htm
If Paul enters the contest, you lost. No, sorry, you lost horribly. Paul makes Verlinden or Paine look like novices. They wouldn't stand a chance against Paul. Read the web site before laughing. Paul's creations are vertually priceless. He's in record books. He doesn't have equals.
Scratchbuild? Paul makes everything out of nothing but original raw materials. He has made the machinery used to make the parts even. That's basically the same as you making all your model tools in addition to making the models.
Paul used to make models like the rest of us too. He's made car models that have won 1st prizes in international grade competitions. He has a Ferrari that has to be seen to be believed. It has a rose on the hood, the rose alone is a masterpiece, and he made it as an afterthought. Just like the saxaphone leaning against the front right tire. Or the custom Ferrari luggage he had added to the trunk of the kit. Hand made using actual Ferrari luggage as masters. The paint job was 10 layers of progressively polished red that had a depth a professional car company would have had trouble duplicating. It has 5 layers of clear that made it look indescribable. It was better looking than the real thing. The car kit was built OOB but everything mentioned above was made by hand as originals.
It was just a walk in the park for Paul.
I know Paul personally by the way, we went to school together. I once told him while we were in our teens "Paul, if you try a bit harder you could get a lot more out of your models". Talk about unexpected results eh. Me, I am just a garden variety model builder. I do it for laughs, only.
There ARE people out there though, clearly, that you and I simply can not even come close to being even remotely as good as. Nothing you or I could ever do would be so 'cool' it would matter in comparison.
So in the end, all we can really attempt to do, is to just have some fun making the damned model.
There is only one thing that might be harming our hobby, and it is the thing you are looking at right now actually.
Kids today are simply not as interested in putting models together as they might have once been. It's not the nifty expensive models with all sorts of bonus junk included. Kids are just not interested like they used to be. That is of course sad. They'd rather sit on their computer or a game machine. The world changed since we were kids.
And grumpy old buggers on forums full of grumpy old buggers is not helping any.
Lighten up eh.
Because if you did not have fun making your model, you did it wrong.