Beating Advanced Modeler Syndrome

Put on your Nikes and JUST DO IT...

I originally beat it by quickly building the Tamiya 1/48 scale armor kits when they came out. There wasn't any AM, PE, resin, gun tubes, etc. available for them at first. I eventually bought more of them than I built, then the AM flood started catching up and I found myself searching for the metal gun tubes, PE sets, etc. once again.

I build the occasional car model, normally straight out of box with minimal painting. If I build it for my son and if it is molded in some sort of colored plastic, I don't even bother to paint the body. I just do some detail painting like chrome door handles, indicator lights, etc. It's great for a quick break.

Thanks to everyone for their inputs, I think I'm starting to arrive at some plan on how to deal with AMS which I can illustrate with examples:

Rule 1 - As some of you have pointed out, if you want to avoid AMS, a better and more complex kit is actually better than a simple one simply because you can do an OOB and still have a model with enough detail and accuracy that you will be happy with it OO. If I was unhappy with the Alfa unless I made my own wire wheels then I should have either built something else, or embraced the idea of making my own wheels. (I have to admit after I got through cussing and I got my eyes un-crossed that they looked pretty nice.)

My current project is a Vietnam era F-4 that arose from re-visiting my past as an AF ECM technician stationed at Ubon RTAFB Thailand. Some old colleagues re-connected with me online which inspired me to scan and restore my old slides and post them online. This next led to me starting an F-4 kit to match one of the planes I worked on. F-4 kits which used to crowd the hobby shop shelves are a little scarcer now, but at a swap meet I found an old 1/72 ESCI F-4E in a water damaged box, a Hasegawa weapons set and the old Microscale decals for 4th Tactical Fighter Wing South East Asia F-4's that were stationed at Ubon. The kit is an excellent molding and the wheel-well, cockpit, and seat details are good enough for 1/72 so I initially had no urge to add aftermarket scratch-built details. Lesson learned.

Rule 2 - If you do go into AMS, do it for a reason other than because the original kit is inadequate and then you can happily embrace it.  Continuing on the F-4 from Rule 1; when I scanned the slides I found that one shot was a close up of an F-4 taxiing out that had a red star kill marking on it. I could just make out the name of the Radar Intercept Officer stenciled on the canopy frame so I thought it would be cool to try to find the crew and send them a copy of the photo. I quickly located the pilot, Fred Sheffler through the F-4 Phantom II website. He was thrilled to get the photo because he had no shots of himself in the plane, and by cosmic coincidence he got my photo on the 40th anniversary of his shooting down the Mig-21.   Fred told me the splash page for the website was a photo of that same plane loaded up so I decided to duplicate the plane with my model.  This is requiring me to do a little AMS because I'm creating the canopy frame stencil decals with my printer, and I could not find ALQ 71 ECM pods or CBU-52 bombs in that scale. This required me to create them by cutting up rocket launchers and bombs from the Hasegawa set, gluing and puttying the bits together, adding some scrap plastic, and home made decals. This time I wasn't feeling like I was over cooking the project because it was for the right reasons; making something cool instead of fixing something inadequate.

So thanks again to everyone. I'll post a photo of the model on FSM when I finish it.

Some contests have OOB categories, a category I strongly endorse.  Also, local clubs have had challenges or other competitions for OOB.

One of the things I notice with the deluge of aftermarket accessories is that folks will add so much aftermarket, but let basic skills lapse.  Entering OOB categories forces us to concentrate on basics, which is always good.

While I still try to make things pretty accurate, I'm not as bad as I used to be about being a perfectionist with the techniques and materials available to me.

My main area of kitbuilding is sci-fi, so this may not apply to you, but one big thing that helped me was getting to see some of the original studio miniatures from Star Wars in person.  I had put the folks who built those on a pedestal to some extent, and had postponed a lot of projects until I felt i'd do anything close to "as good of a job" as I figured they did from the pictures available.

Interesting thing was that the pictures didn't capture some of what i saw on those models in-person.  A lot of them had parts from kits added on, and many of those were actually recasts in resin that ( much to my surprise ) had bubbles in some cases.  The big Star Destroyer model had panel lines on it that always looked impressive, and the idea of scribing like that was something that made that project something i'd get around to someday when i could devote the time to such detail.  I decided not to let that concern delay me 9 of course, now it's just other projects in the works that is causing delays ) when I saw that many of those "scribed" panel lines were just drawn on the model in pencil.

One of the guys here had a signature line on his posts that said "Finished is better than perfect."  if the folks at ILM can put that into practice with what's used in the movies, I figure that's good enough for me.

As far as something more practical that may help, I'd suggest trying out the Weekend Madness GB if it comes up again this year.  While we'll always have kits that we want to take extra time on and add insane amounts of detail, the experience of having a time limit of 48 hours from first part cut from the sprue to last shot of dullcote may help you find a balance that works for more of your projects.

I don`t think I`m an "advanced modeler" but I do know what you mean about trying to get things as accurate as you can...it`s beginning to make me stay away from the bench more and more. I`m building a Monogram Albatross for a GB and it`s OOB and I`m actually having fun not super detailing it. Like what was said earlier, just open up an "easy" kit and build.

For me the key to beating AMS was to start focussing on the fun side of building, enjoying the build proces instead of getting the perfect result. Strange thing is that as a result your build quality will get better because you build more and you skills increase.

I just started buying better kits. Example if you can get a Italeri M4A1 or a Dragon I will buy the dragon. That way I can build OOB and have nice detail without breaking the bank on aftermarket or going nuts with scratchbuilding etc...

Back in the modeling game and I have been struggling too.  All I want to do is build my models sitting in their beautiful boxes on my shelf but know I will go overboard.  Seeing all the wonderful builds out there makes me want to take my skills to the limit right away.  Instead, I should really just concentrate on developing and then mastering basic skills.  Crawl before walking... walk before running.  Argh!

Sorry,I do not know of this problem you speak of ???

Just build and have fun

If I ever get to be an advanced modeler I will let you know what I do. I have the IWTBAAM (I Want To Be An Advanced Modeler) sickness right now.

It's easy to say "just build it OOB to the best of your abilities", but I guess that it is harder to do in reality.

I don't try to build perfect scale recreations of a subject, but I do strive to build a kit to the best of my abilities with strong efforts focused on the basics of modeling.  I'm still looking to have the perfect seam, so I'm a long way from AMS...

Make a firm commitment to OOB.  No scratch building, no AM.  Just take what's in the box, paint it, glue it, decal it, clear coat it.  Don't worry about making it "right."  Focus on making it "well."  

I have yet to experience AMS.  I amat the point where I am focusing on making it well - filling seams, getting rid of ejection marks, getting a good paint job.  I do think I'm starting to show some symptoms of AMS, though.  I have been spending more time looking at AM decals, and thinking about what I need to start working with resin.  Should I see somebody about this?