The lack of respect for Mecha.

Cosmic J wrote:

PatlaborUnit1 said it best: "Build to please yourself, and don't worry about what others think!"

Super Al said it long before I did. He said "build what you want, the way you want, and the critics will flame you every time."  boy was he right! And some people LOVE to criticize but offer little in the way of support.

Im building it the way I want, and happy to do so.  I think I'll just crack open this here Zaku and take a peek.....

 David

smeagol the vile wrote:

Its amazing how quickly the attitude of mecha modelers makes me want to tell them to go F themselves and leave the forum.  In one day of posting my thread about this on bakuc it has already turned into attacking other people.

Honestly I think everybody on BAKUC was quite patient with you.  It seems the only things anybody had an issue with were your statements that people MUST respect seam filling, painting, etc. as the proper basics of modeling.

Personally, yeah, I kind of agree with that attitude in a way...  I don't necessarily like the whole attitude of "do it however you like, there is no right or wrong way", etc.  Honestly, it strikes me as a cop out.  There are right and wrong ways of doing things.  Saying otherwise just seems like a cheap way to avoid conflict.  I don't especially like people treating unfinished models as complete, generally that's something I would discourage.

But what I tried to tell you on BAKUC is that, right or wrong, adopting that as an attitude is exactly the sort of thing you want to avoid.  It is the essence of the perceived "elitism" you speak against!   If someone isn't interested, for their own reasons, in learning to be a better modeler, then copping an attitude isn't going to push them toward learning - it will just repel them.  It's like Dave Merriman - very skilled scratch builder, goes out of his way to share his knowledge and lead other modelers to the same kind of ability - but with his tutorials comes all this attitude- deriding "kit builders" as not being real modelers, etc...  I always took that as a kick-in-the-pants kind of motivation, like "come on, guys, it's really not that big a deal to scratch something!" but to a lot of people that comes across as exceedingly negative. Pragmatically speaking I don't think it's an effective means of motivating people.

I maintain that if you want beginners to do better work, the best you can do is inspire them.  Show them the best work you can manage.  Share everything you've learned.  Make it clear that anybody can do the same thing. And be good to 'em. You can't push, you can only lead.

Thats what I honestly meant.  I forget who thought I was blaming the newbies, I wasnt, I was blaming the people not showing them.  Not making sure they know how to do the things they need to. 

Every time I see a kit posted on bakuc.com that showed ANY kind of tallent Ill try and help them however I can

That's the right idea. Always try to contribute to any community you belong too.

Hey stv, whereabouts in Philly you located at? I used to live right off Broad Street. They still do street racing on Front Street on the weekends?

Heh! Definitely not my old stomping grounds.

kylwell wrote:

And as a note Smeagol, my wife is a big fan of the Acguy...

Well, they are the cuttest giant robot killing machines in the world.

smeagol the vile wrote:

kylwell wrote: And as a note Smeagol, my wife is a big fan of the Acguy... Well, they are the cuttest giant robot killing machines in the world.

:lol: 

Thanks! I just feel that you are one of my best "online" friends so I would include you and some others in my little project. the hard part is casting everyone, but you were an easy one to cast the second I saw that Acguy sig pic in your sig box. Also, I cant think Acguy without thinking STV. it just sticks to ya, you know?

The only question left now is, what colors would you like to be?

roger that, GGA green it is! throw some black and white in there for detail and you have the STV Acguy!

I havent decided yet. I may end up doing two seperate stories, one serious and one slapstick or some other form of funny stuff with mecha. in the latter of the two, the mecha them selves would be based on people I know in the real world or online, such as yourself, based off what I know of that persons personality and how they interact with me. I also am having trouble on choosing what MS or bot will be me in the story. all this is inspired by one of my favorite web comics and some japanese gundam parody mangas I found over here. plus as you very well know, I love mecha, mostly my Gundams and Mazingers.

on a side note, I found some 1/100 scale tamahawk destroids from Macross for 730 yen a pop at one of my LHS. should make for good target practice for my,.. I mean, a good WIP later on down the road. lol

Ya know guys, im gona drag this up once more... but not for the origional reason. 

I have witnessed, in multiple categories, a lack of fundimentals in the past two days.

First is not necesserially a 'witness' of one, but in my brass methods (learn to teach brass instruments) we had an entire lecture on what can go wrong, and problems can come up, and how to fix them (not easy) if student does not learn the fundimentals of playing.

I'm in my wind ensemble in college today, our snare drummer (who is really a singer and floutist, I am the only percussionist that can play all the instruments, and the ONLY one that can do timpani, so Im stuck back there.  I had to sit, and watch, piano player who can sort of play the traps (and got stuck in my section (im senior member and section leader) because of that traps playing, fumble around and try to get a roll, it was one of the worst sounding things I ever heard.  None ever taught her how to roll, thats freaking the second thing you need to learn!  Four percussionists, one was stuck at the mallets, and me at the timpani... and none of the avaliable ones could do a roll, its college for god sakes.

Now im starting to see model kits, that have... while not good color choices imho... good paint jobs.  Clean, smooth, semi well done pannel lining (sort of thick, or not done at parts)... but there are seamlines that were never fixed.

When I posted my thing on bakuc, which did NOT recieve a welcome reply, the real over arching theme was they did not want to 'scare new modelers away'

To that, I really have one thing to say.  If I have a choice, 100 crappy butt modelers who cant fix a seam, or 12 who work on it, and end up making things as good as Doog's or ChuckW's builds,  I will take the 12 thank you very much

smeagol the vile wrote:

When I posted my thing on bakuc, which did NOT recieve a welcome reply, the real over arching theme was they did not want to 'scare new modelers away' To that, I really have one thing to say.  If I have a choice, 100 crappy butt modelers who cant fix a seam, or 12 who work on it, and end up making things as good as Doog's or ChuckW's builds,  I will take the 12 thank you very much

We all love to see great builds - no argument about that.

But....

Everyone has to start somewhere - one has to learn to walk before you can run.

If someone just starting out in the hobby is proud of their work and brave enough to post his/her work online for all the world to see, then more power to them.

Learning how to fill seams, learning how to paint smoothly, learning how to weather realistically... These are all incremental processes.

Yes, they are all "fundamentals" of good model building, but they have to be learned at the builder's own pace, not shoved down their throat, nor should one starting out in the hobby be criticised for not yet possessing them.

I would love to see 100 crappy models, if they're built by happy modellers who have enjoyed building them. It means that there's a good strong interest in the hobby.

For every detailed to the hilt and finished to perfection masterpiece which we see posted, there may be hundreds, even thousands of builds which we never see, built by people twisting the parts off the sprues with their fingers, stuck together with tube glue.   

Did they enjoy building them and are they as proud of their achievements as we who post ours here are? You better believe it...

If they want to improve their skills, that's their call. It makes absolutely no difference to you or me.

Likewise, if they're happy to rip all the pieces off the sprues and slam the thing together in five minutes, if they're happy with it, that's all that matters - it's not for you, me or anyone else to say there's anything wrong with that.

Its fine for starting modelers who have no skills yet, to not do it.  But when the paint jobs are starting to look clean, and smooth, good finish, no brush marks, kind of thing.  and there are seams.  Thats a problem.

Its fine if someone's work is not good to start ut with, but they need to start learning the fundimentals at the get go.  If you dont your just going to start seeing more and more beautifully painted peices with giant seam lines all over them, gaps, mold lines.

You know what there gona look like?  Toys.  there going to look like a toy you grab off the shelf in toys R us, a nice paint job, good details, but seams, and mold lines all over the thing.

Without these fundimentals we are just making toys, may as well go join an assembly line in china.

Hi Smegol, guys

I've been reading up on your issue across a few board and agree it would be nice for the new guys to put some effort into kits besides snaping and panel lines. Im happy to see thick, brush strokes, funny gloss/ paint finish models with attempts to seams lines but being a hobby I belive not to take action and at least happy some even snap kts together...

The reason why i've come here today is to post a rebuttal from another forum. This might give you guys more information on your issue if you chose to plan another plan of attack. I may not nessarly agree with the contents but if the link isn't post here it is of no use...

Im also sorry for what happened to you at the BAKUC forums Smegol but you were a tad hard...

Here is the link:

http://fichtenfoo.com/forum/index.php?topic=4358.0

Ok, this is the kind of thing that causes me to rant

Great example a new entry on bakuc.com

http://www.bakuc.com/modeler/maniacaltyrant/3105#comments

The paint job is nice, clean, the pannel lines are alright, could be better, the base is absolutley gorgeous... BUT THERE ARE SEAMS ON THE STINKING KIT, EASY TO FIX SEAMS!!!

Uh....... ain't there a part missing? around the front waist area?

also, i have one more issue with this kit. It's a fracken SEED kit!!

other than that and the seams, good job.

Hello, guys. You all seem to be new faces to me. I have been away from the site about a year  or two. From the looks of this thread, it looks like you guys could use another mecha builder back on the site!lol I find this thread interesting because though I primarily build sci-fi, my dad gave me a Bradley Armored vehicle about 3 years ago to build for him and gave me a Gundam as my incentive. I had no interest in building armor but since he bought the Gundam already (which was WAY over priced) I had little choice but to agree.

I then started hanging out in the armor section of this board (where as before I only came to the sci fi portion). While learning how to properly build the Bradley I learned how to weather my mechs and make them more realistic. I was soon addicted to building modern armor and the historical research involved. I still primarily build sci fi but I have the armor bug as well and am grateful for what I learned over there. Though I will admit the bolt counters can seem to get obsessive! lol

Still studying real armor helped me to build better, or rather more realistic, looking mecha. Some people like to build with animated look. If that is what they want, then cool. Sometimes it's refreshing to just build one OOB in bright anime fashion. To each his own, so long as you enjoy doing it. Different people have different motivations for building a model and that is the criteria by which it should be judged. You want a museum quality looking replica, or it's being scrutinized by those familiar with the real thing, then count your bolts.  You just want to relive some stress after long week then the details may not be so important. You just have to ask what the builder is building for. That is just my 2 cents.