Bakster
This has been talked about before by other posters, but what can I tell ya, I feel inspired about it.
I often ask myself what changes or products I appreciate most since coming back to the hobby some 7 years ago. The list is amazingly long, but if tasked to pare it down to just three things...and what I might miss most in the build process if I didn't have them, they are:
1. Tamiya Extra thin. For me, this has revolutionized how I assemble models. The ability to paint glue on a join from the outside, and not damage the model...is...WOW.
2. Believe it or not, sanding sticks. I love them. They are efficient and effective. In the old days I had to use paper. Blah. Not a fan of paper. Just my opinion.
3. Using an airbrush. Though I had an AB during my first tour, paints and mediums have come a long way since then. I struggled a bunch in those early days where I was constantly stripping paint and starting over.
How about you guys? What three things would you not want to live without?
I don't know that I'd say there's anything I couldn't live without in the hobby, but I can say what impressed me the most, what the biggest development was.
My hiatus started in 1982, when I went off to college. I took up building models again about 15 or 16 years later. That's to provide some context. I had also started painting toy soldiers, and casting them, a few years before.
What impressed me the most was the number and variety of kits available to us, the number of manufacturers, and the amount of things available as aftermarket items, whether it was parts, or decals, or diorama pieces.
In 1982, if you wanted to detail a model, for example, you scratchbuilt details, and cannibalized things for materials, a la Shep Paine. Probably the most common thing available as an aftermarket product was decals.
When I got back into modeling around '97 or '98, there were the smaller, short-run makers, like Accurate Miniatures, or Classic Airframes, and a small host of others. They made subjects that none of the companies I knew-Monogram, Revell, Aurora, Lindberg, or Airfix-would have made, or only rarely. And I hadn't done much with Tamiya or Hasegawa. Those makers were still around, too. But there was so much available to us by that time. And aftermarket-engines, whether for aircraft, armor, cars, interior details, conversion kits, and detailing sets of photo-etch. There was so much available, and still is.
The other thing that surprised me was the near complete disappearance of figures from kits. I understood it-finally, there were enough modelers who didn't use the ones most makers supplied, so most makers stopped including them. And here, too, aftermarket makers took the opportunity and that's how you got figures, if you wanted them.
Otherwise, at a basic level, things were the same. The tools I used were still good, the glues and paints I used were still good, we had airbrushes before-I just didn't own one-and a kit was what you made of it.
And of course, the Internet was now the primary tool to get in touch with others in the hobby. It didn't and doesn't replace face-to-face meetings, but so much info is available instantly, and we can contact each other so much faster, that it enhances the hobby. You don't have to drive to a library, or a museum, to research a subject-though you still can, and it is very rewarding. You don't have to write to someone-though again, you still can, and it is very rewarding. And we still have meetings, and shows, which can't really be replaced. But we can supplement that, with virtual contact. No one ever imagined that, when I was a kid and built models.