Is the modelling (new models) stagnant..?

[Alan 45]

Interesting that we all seem to be so dependent on what the manufactuers give us. I think some of the most enjoyable models on here are those scratch built from household objects and materials.How about we think a little bit more outside the box (sorry!) and use our imaginations and creative skills a bit more to produce scratch built items to support and supplement the manufacturers offerrings.

As for new model offerrings being stagnant I think again it is a case of what we make of them so maybe use your creativity in the setting to come up with something really different.

Finally why are we so wrapped up in the latest offerrings? What about the masses of old kits that are still out there and all the more available to us via the internet? You can still buy everything from a dinosaur to a model of Henry the VIII to a plastic kit of a beam engine to a first world war Old Bill Bus!! In between you have railway engines and rolling stock and matching period buildings, and that is all from Airfix!! Looking back through old models there is more variety out there than there has ever been and when you combine them with the current extreems of the 1/24th Typhoon and the wealth of Eastern European and Chineese kits I think we have never had so much choice.

Yes Richard but I still can't get the figures I want :P

[Guest]

I wonder if the standards modellers expect nowadays is part of the problem? Around 20 years ago I made exclusively 1:72 aircraft, WW1 and inter-war. I used the trusty Revell, Airfix and Matchbox offerings, plus a whole range of limited run kits, either injection (such as Merlin and Pegasus) or vacform (Contrail). I don't think think there's such a wide range of subjects now. I get the impression that the really small limited-run companies are no longer around, possibly because the kits required a lot of effort, and the end result was rarely as good as you'd get today. There are smaller companies out there, but their niche products add photo-etch and resin to the injection moulded parts and cost a lot more. Most of us (like myself) look for lots of interior detail and finely etched panel lines, whereas before, I was satisfied with scratch-building a seat, straps, joystick (plastic rod with a blob of glue) and instument panel (plastic card painted black with a few dials scratched on with a pin), and maybe sanding down the trailing edges a bit.

I suppose I'm lucky - having come back to the hobby recently, with WW2 1:72 aircraft as my chosen area, I'm revelling (no pun intended) in the quality of the kits, and I'll probably be dead before I run out of kits to build. If I'd been modelling continuously all these years, I'd probably feel things were getting stagnant and looking to scratchbuild or kit bash new subjects.