Talk about expensive

stikpusher

Probably Flat Black would come the closest to the most used color...

Flat Black and White.

Probably Flat Black would come the closest to the most used color over the years, and perhaps I have gone thru a gallon... But if you count how much of that was little Testors Squar bottle or old Polly S that were each well under a $.50 a bottle, the cost is not that high spread out over 40+ years...

Interesting points, everyone.

I have to say, though, that comparatively speaking I still think scale modeling is an affordable hobby. You can pay for the latest big-money kit or you can work on detailing an Airfix/Monogram/etc. classic with bits scratchbuilt from wire and sheet styrene. Either way, I think model building is great value for the money.

And as far as paint goes, I always have to chuckle at the "X amount per gallon" bit. I've been modeling for 30+ years, and I'd be hard pressed to think of any color I've used a whole gallon of in that timeframe. Alternately, I have lots of partial bottles of paint that I've had for many, many years. If you take care of paint and store it properly, it will last a long, long time.

Admittedly, I should pull one of the 20-years-and-counting unfinished kits out of my stash, and get to work on it with all those carefully preserved bottles of paint!

Matt @ FSM

2 variations on the same tip for saving money on buying paints online

the weight of paints is what drives up the shipping costs, so, order paints when you are buying other things that get you near the "free shipping" threshold, a lot of times, I have an order all together, and realize that I can get the paints for nearly free when I add them to the cart, and the shipping "bumps off" the cost

the other,,,,a bit more extreme,,,,,,but, every year or two, I make a "paint only" order,,,,,later this month, it will be 68 paints, plus clears, primers, etc,,,,and 5 decal sheets,,,,,,the total will be over the free shipping amount, average "cost per bottle" will be in the $3.25 each range, usually it is over $4.50 per if I order just 10 paints and have to pay shipping costs (these are LifeColor and MM Acryl, other brands will differ based on individual jar price)

Depending what state you live in, the total sounds about right for ModelMaster.  Sometimes, this hobby sucks (just kidding!!!)

Stik, ebay had a couple Venturas up for bid today. good price including shipping.  I also got good news.  My son had purchased one for my Christmas from Tower Hobbies.  They notified him Saturday that it had shipped.  Oh boy, Oh boy, Oh boy!    Rick

Well my 15 year old and I just did a father/son trip to the LHS. He wanted a Gundam, his preferred model type these days and picked out a nice one that ought to keep him busy and off his video games for a bit. I came out of there empty handed aside from a new issue of FSM since the kit I wanted (New Revell PV1 Ventura) was sold out....

My older son picks a Wii, DS, 3DS or PS3 game over a model kit every time. The younger sone goes for Legos.

I agree high and mighty. I was at Toys R Us 2 nights ago and came across the new Revell Easy Kit Star Wars AAT. They are $19.99 basically everywhere. Lets forget about those 40% coupons for a second.

Now, for $4 more, a kid can get the Hasbro Toy with more playability value and use their 1/18 figures. Which one we think that kid will go with?

If model makers want to know why more ten year-olds are not getting into the hobby, they need only look at the outrageous prices now being charged for their products. When I was a kid I got a new model for a good report card or a birthday, and I thought my parents were indulgent!  Im not asking for Monogram, Revell and (once) Aurora to charge 50 cents to a big dollar for a kit, but $50 and waaaay up for some ill-tooled small production Polish observation plane is ridiculous. And who was ever happy to see a kit that contained white metal or resin parts? 

Model design has steadily improved over the last 60 years but the advances over things like folding wings and landing gear and more detailed cockpits haven't been all that advanced at all.  As all the obsessives (including me) on this blog know, we re-tool and add on, and fix up models to suit our purpose, so that even the most expensive Hasegawa kit isn't going to go together without further tweaking.  And when makers like Roden put most of their parts INSIDE the fuselage where they will never be seen, you pay for that, and it's just downright dumb.

Ive also found that, unless you need the exact color for the bak of propeller blades for a 1939 Nakajima, most basic colors are available in large enamel for plastic  spray cans that work perfectly well for one-third the price of Testors or Tamiya.

And that's for Model Master Acryl and Enamel. I have purchased Polly S at $5+. Dang, I'm paying more for a bottle of paint than a gallon of gas or milk. As another fellow mentioned, I also stock colors in advance based on my building habits and subject interest. It took me a while to build a set of the most common Luftwaffe/German colors. It didn't hurt that much when I decided to build a few German subjects. For some strange reason, I don't like to order paints on line.

Hans von Hammer

I'd be willing to wager that the targeted demographic is "over 40", though...  

I'd agree. I think it's becoming more of a serious adult hobby rather than "advanced legos" for kids. Though the times I do step into a Hobbytown I do see a number of snap-tite kits.

The hobby's not dying, it's just becoming more high end. There will still be guys buying old kits, digging through spare parts boxes and making masterpieces, but the mainstream modelers will be buying the high end kits with all the bells and whistles.

Except for the Revell easy kit Star Wars line, models are virtually unmarketed towards the younger kids (under 10) with weekly allowance money.

Today's kits are marketed at the modeler with disposable income and time who don't like to golf or live in an area where golf can't be played 365 days a year.

I'm down to just buying paint for the most part since I have 500+ kits to build. Unless the kit jumps out and grabs me by the "tenders" I past that area up. The last kit was the ICM HS126A-1 at Hobbytown since it was 50% off. I've even sworn off of Ebay due to the rediculous pricing of the kits found there.

Hey, I resemble that remark.  Also, Hans touched on...   Krylon, Rustoleum and several other paint manufacturers now make an impressive array of spray paint colors.  They even make a line of camo colors for hunters and apparently modelers.  I like to use them especially on the colors that I use a lot of..... olive drab, neutral grey, primers, clear gloss, clear flat.  They can be applied straight from the can or decanted and sprayed from any airbrush. I'm sure that brings the cost of painting down considerably. That's even counting the costs of the cans.  But for the hard to match colors and the colors that predominately get applied by brush I prefer Model Masters Enamels for their toughness.  I do like the Vallejo and Tamiya Acrylics, but don't seem to use them as much since they don't adhere as well.   I have to agree with the Doogs comment. I spend more on paints, adhesives, and all the supplies than I do on models any more.  There's a big stash to work off.  Rick

I'd be willing to wager that the targeted demographic is "over 40", though...  

stikpusher

 

the doog:

 

I've just about stopped buying models so I can buy the supplies to finish them. Yeah, it's getting ridiculously expensive, but we shouldn't hope for any relief in prices as the modeling market dries up and the numbers or plastic modelers continues to decline.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

 

 

Agreed.... while I have no doubt that more will rediscover and return to the hobby, I doubt  we will see more adolescents taking up the hobby in large numbers. And demographics will dictate fewer and fewer paricipants as time takes its toll.

Here we go again with the "the hobby is dying" stuff. 

I disagree. I don't know, maybe it's because I'm not part of the generation where model building was something everyone did. The first Nintendo came out when I was six or so. You want to talk about a hobby that was eviscerated by technology and those durned kids and their Xboxes? Baseball cards (well that and the trading card bubble the cardmakers brought on themselves).

I look around and yes, traditional hobby shops may be thin on the ground and growing thinner, but between what's out there and what's online, I've never seen so much variety, so many new kits hitting shelves, or so much innovation going on. Somebody is buying all these kits and a paints and resin and PE and white metal and decals. The companies that offer them must be making money or else they wouldn't be in business.

It strikes me as similar to DIY home repair stuff. I think it'd be easy to look at modern society and bemoan how nobody knows how to wield a power tool or replace a sink or install a fan box, but the selection and availability of that stuff is greater than it's ever been before. So maybe there's a fallacy in how we look at modeling too.

I wonder how many modelers aren't online. Don't go to contests. Read forums like these and never post a thing. And what about outside of the US and western Europe? There's a ton of stuff coming out of eastern Europe and Asia these days...perhaps modeling is just going increasingly global? 

It's easy to look around and bemoan the lack of younger people getting into the hobby, but SOMEBODY has to be supporting all this activity. It has to be coming from somewhere. IMO it's more niche than it was in the past, and the geographic density of modelers makes a physical retail space a challenge, but that ecommerce has made it pretty viable stateside, and that the emergence of eastern Europe and Asia, et al are also major contributing factors.

My ...

The MM Metalizers have broken the 4 dollar mark here in New Jersey...$4.05 per 1/2 oz. bottle...yikes!

fermis

My shop has MM enamels for just under $4. I usually only buy 2 or 3 at a time so it doesn't seem like such a kick in the zipper.

Thats what my LHS has them just under $4 to. This is actually the first time I've ever had to stock up on paints like that, but I usually go in and buy 3 or 4 colors.

troublemaker66

Cadet Chuck:

Calculate the price per gallon of paint, vs. the price of gasoline or even fine aged Scotch whiskey, and you'll realize what a rip-off paint prices are!

 

 

Hey Chuck...I did just that in another thread and IIRC...it`s something like $900.00 a gallon for Model Master paints....lol.

No, no, no, the paint isn't $900 a gallon....it's only around $36.27 per gallon. You're spending $863.73 on little glass jars.

I don't pay retail..

 I buy pretty much all my paint from Hobby Lobby and use the 40% coupons to buy paint with...  I even use the coupons on the $1.69 bottles of Testor's enamel...

By the same token, I don't buy only "model" paints, but I buy all my oils, acrylics, water colors, tempera, and craft paints, along with rattle-cans...

Granted, it takes a while to get the paints I need, since I can (ethically) use only one coupon per day... But I take the wife with me, and maybe a buddy, and get the paint thataway too, so when coupled with going in again after shift-change, I get about 6-8 bottles per day if need be....

Plus, I have a tenant that works at Hobby Lobby, and gets a 10% employee discount, so I have him pick stuff up for me too, including kits, which gets me 50% off everything that the 40%-er works on...

Cool eh?

fermis

My shop has MM enamels for just under $4. I usually only buy 2 or 3 at a time so it doesn't seem like such a kick in the zipper.

This made me laugh!

Cadet Chuck

Calculate the price per gallon of paint, vs. the price of gasoline or even fine aged Scotch whiskey, and you'll realize what a rip-off paint prices are!

 

Calculate the price per gallon of paint, vs. the price of gasoline or even fine aged Scotch whiskey, and you'll realize what a rip-off paint prices are!

the doog

I've just about stopped buying models so I can buy the supplies to finish them. Yeah, it's getting ridiculously expensive, but we shouldn't hope for any relief in prices as the modeling market dries up and the numbers or plastic modelers continues to decline.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Agreed.... while I have no doubt that more will rediscover and return to the hobby, I doubt  we will see more adolescents taking up the hobby in large numbers. And demographics will dictate fewer and fewer paricipants as time takes its toll.

I've just about stopped buying models so I can buy the supplies to finish them. Yeah, it's getting ridiculously expensive, but we shouldn't hope for any relief in prices as the modeling market dries up and the numbers or plastic modelers continues to decline.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

fermis

My shop has MM enamels for just under $4. I usually only buy 2 or 3 at a time so it doesn't seem like such a kick in the zipper.

I agree, paint prices are outrageous. A half ounce bottle of MM enamels runs between $3.50 and $4.00 around here.  Sad thing is, I'm still using a 1/4 ounce bottle of  Testor's brass paint with a 79 cent price tag still on it.  I try not to let my paint stock run so low as to have to pick up so many at once.ar as to paint my current  I currently do not have a compressor ( the perils of apartment life) and keeping stocked on propellant is my real wallet-killer.  I even went as far as to paint my current project using oil paints, just to avoid the cost of a can of propellant.

I use Tamiya acrylics mostly and try to buy 10-15 dollars worth of paint every week or two until I`m well stocked up. I try to do the same with MM enamels too and obviously don`t get as much paint per dollar. I chimed in on another post about paint and how costly it`s becoming and so I started experimenting with "hardware store" brands...sheesh...I was told ,pretty much, that i was nuts...lol.

Aside from one-offs (oh crap, I ran out of flat white, etc), I buy my paints online. 

Scale Hobbyist sells 1/2 Model Master enamels for $2.40 a pop, significantly less than you'll fork at Hobbytown. Yeah, shipping, but if you wait and buy several at once, or several plus a kit or two, you come out way ahead. 

I forget the exact calculations, but assuming about $10 shipping, you only need to buy like eight bottles at a time (fewer if you're getting Alclad or something) to save money over Hobbytown prices.