Okay:
So your new at this. Who Cares? You do right? You want to build the best model you've ever built, now that you have three or four good attempts under your belt! Right? Then why are you afraid to try P.E.?
Yes! it's Daunting, Scary and Down Right Difficult, Not so, my modeling friends of whatever age! Okay, How do you do it? Well, first settle on the Model you want to build. Do your research and get the Kit, Paint and Books gathered together. Oh, Then Don't forget aftermarket Decals if your model needs them. Now for the P.E.
You are going to order it AFTER you do a tutorial. Your tutorial can be found in most good Stores selling a general line of craft supplies. They are called "Metal Earth Models By Fascinations" These little Metal kits come in all levels of ability from very simple to very, very difficult!
You are going to invest in at least four. First one the simplest. You'll need a good pair of Smooth Jawed Needle nose pliars and either a Toenail Nipper or P.E. ( Read Sprue Cutters) and a small container of Gel Super glue. You don't really need the glue, But if you break a tab off it helps!
Yes, my friends every Metal Earth kit is polished stainless, that uses tabs and flow chart instructions to go together! The instructions are numbered for every part. Now this is not the case with Photo etched material UNLESS it comes with the kit, and they have alternate part numbers for you to use for that!
But you need to be comfortable, snipping, folding and assembling each part of these kits before you graduate to P.E.. Why? Well here's a good fer instance.The 1/350 P.E. from Eduard for Trumpeter's model of the U.S.S. North Carolina has you do things you didn't think you could with little pieces of metal! And it is a thinner version of the material in the Metal Earth kits. Now a great deal more Awesome sets, they are! Are those from Gold Medal Models,Toms Modelworks ,Steel Navy and many others.
The trick for Ship builders and Aircraft, and yes, Armor modelers is scale. What scale do you prefer? The smaller the scale the more difficulty you might have with the P.E. Why? Well the sheer size of the small parts in 1/700 would be indeed daunting to someone who's never done a ship in that scale , much less the P.E.. Plus, remember P.E. in many cases has to be glued together!
That's another reason I recommend the Metal earth kits. I have been doing models for years and have used everything from E.Z.line and Box and Cabinet nails and everything else that would work for the effect I wanted. I even used to do ship rails in the liners from mens shirt collars because you could lay out the lines and scrape them in with anX-Acto drawn backwards on the surface then clean that off, then over lay the lines with Colored artist's ink.Wipe that gently off and you have the rail and post lines left behind on a clear see through material.
I never did anything else except the spinning props. A circle of the plastic with faded blade appearances was a trick my art teacher taught me on paper. Then I had to do one in plastic to prove to her I paid attention.
If you do Metal earth, You will be more comfortable investing in the P.E. for your project. Also remember even they can slow down the fastest. I used to do them in one evening.The latest one I am doing is the Off-Shore oil rig with the Tanker. the scale is so small it has slowed me down considerably. the Tanker is only five inches long when done!
So see, even I have to slow down sometimes. Try the Metal earth. Get your project set up and P.E. to your heart's content. Oh, In case you haven't figured it out there's a good reason for this recommendation. You learn how to Hold, Fold, Bend and Curve metal, like you would find yourself doing with P.E. So it is good training because it is stiffer and therefore a wee bit more of a challenge to do. But it is GOOD TRAINING!