new to modeling, questions

Welcome to the forum, Graham.
By size, do you mean scale?
I would suggest lower priced kits to "hone your skills." Learning to dry fit, fill seams, and solve problems are invaluable skills to possess. Find a subject that you like, read the techniques, tools & painting pages on the forum, and start. If you run into problems, the modelers here are more than willing to help you.
You could spend more money on kits that "fall together," which are good confidence-builders, but they don't give you much practice on the basic skills. This can end in an ability to build only those kits, which limits your choices of subjects. Its also a good idea to learn how to fill seams on an inexpensive kit, as opposed to learning on a $30 kit.
Hope this has been of help, and welcome to this wonderful hobby. Have fun !

For starting out, today the best choice would probably be 1/48 scale. There is a wide selection of high quality kits available with excellent detail that are not beyond the average modelers ability. Depending on your interest, you can't go wrong with many of the 1/48 Tamiya kits. Try something like their Spitfire Mk. V, Bf-109 or P51-D for a start.

Rick

I would have to recomend that you check out http://swannysmodels.com it is a forum member's sight. He has good articles about filling seams and using Future, etc. that are really helpful. I'm just recently getting back into modeling as well and found his sight useful.

I would recommend that for beginning kits you go with 1/72 scale if you want to build modern jets or 1/48 if you are interested in the WWII era aircraft. It turns out that they are usually about the same size too! The advantage in going 1/72 for jets is that there are generally fewer parts and they ar cheeper. Perhaps a more important question is which manufacturer to buy kits from. I would stay away from the more expensive and advanced kits of Hasegawa and Tamiya and go more towards the Revell/Monogram, Italeri or Testors kits at the beginner level. They have less detail and fewer parts... and sometimes they don't go together well, but you can usually make decent models from them and they are a cheap and easy way to build your skills.

That is just my opinion. Good Luck!

thank you for your answeres everyone, I am mostly interested in the WW2 era planes, namely the Bf-109, Stukas (most German planes accually) and some others like Mustangs.

I have never liked monagram models in the past, for the main reason being cheapely made.

keep the ideas comming!

Graham

Firstly, welcome to the forums, Graham!
I would suggest 1/72 scale models to start since you can get a good grasp of the basic skills with them, they're cheap, small and save on shelf space, and the variety they offer is incredible! Besides, i don't think you have any intentions of super-detailing a cockpit... or do you? My preference runs to 1/72nd Multiengined aircraft...

when building models, i think you should build something that you really like. when i started modelling, it was the time when the movie "Top Gun" was showing and i really like that movie specially the dog fights, so i bought an (1:144 so small) F-14 Tomcat and that started it all.

also depends on your shelf space. if u buy a 1:35 B-52 stratofortress....yikes! you have to clear the living room! ha ha ha

welcome to the forums graham,

the guys here will take good care of you i'm sure!
from a personal point of view, i would go for a tamiya or hasegawa 1/48 - big choice of 109s etc, and whilst you might not "learn" much in terms of scratchbuilding, all that will come later...just get some confidence up by starting on something easy!!
just opinion, and maybe you should ignore it as guys like pixilater and swanny are a lot better than me!!
regards,
nick

Graham,welcome aboard. Glad to have you here. I'd recommend starting in 1/72 scale. if shelf space is a consideration. If not, then you may want to build 1/48 scale. They're a bit more expensive than the smaller kits. Happy modelling.

ok, I went to the local Hobby shop ChooChoo Willies ( choochoowillies.com ) and was a little let down to find that he currently did not have any ME-109's in stock. But I did pick up a Fw-190A8, by Academy.. The shop owner was very helpfull and said that this was a good starter.
it's a Fockewulf Fw-190A8 "Heinz Bar" with a little teeny Kubelwagon