Something I don't get about blitzbaus

[Zee28]

After that, things will get a lot more difficult for me; deliberately cutting corners and not "doing a proper job" doesn't agree with me.

And that's exactly my problem Rob, which is why I've never joined a Blitz. My models, in reality, are never a 'Proper Job', I simply haven't got that talent and skills of you guys, but what would really irk me is if I looked at the completed model in the knowledge that I could have done it better, even by my mediocre standards. And I already do that with models that I DIDN'T Blitz!

Zee28

[Gregers]

I'm with Zee on this.
I consider myself an 'average at best' modeller. I see builds that others have blitz'd that would completely annihilate my best builds on a competition table so a good modeller like yourself given the proper planning and the above hints (Add to this a kit/subject that you are familiar with) and a blitz should be well within your abilities and give you a result to be proud of.
BUT. The original idea for the blitz was not to produce a masterpiece that'll take all the gold at the nats. It was go bring back the 'chuck it together and have fun like we used to' days and the resultant feelings we got as a youth when we (using my case as an example) came back from the supermarket where the family did the weekly shopping. arriving back home with for example a Matchbox kit that had cost my 23p having the model built by bed time and playing with it the next day. Simple days of simple pleasures where time constraints, cost and no pressure to perform where the norm.
Now as for the modeller I am today I know I make short cuts, I know I could take more time and get better results. I know I have several airbrushes that never get used. I am just happy tinkering with kits just as I did as a young one and that's the game for me. I model as relaxation and that's that. The Blitz gets me back to those days as a child and I'm happy with that. On occasion I build something that I know will be for shows (CBK or CW tables etc) and I pull out all the stops and make a superior by my standards effort and that's fine by me. So that's my take on the Blitz, from the person who's idea it was in the first place on the old forum so you all know who to blame .

All the best.

Greg

[rob_van_riel]

It was go bring back the 'chuck it together and have fun like we used to' days and the resultant feelings we got as a youth when we (using my case as an example) came back from the supermarket where the family did the weekly shopping. arriving back home with for example a Matchbox kit that had cost my 23p having the model built by bed time and playing with it the next day. Simple days of simple pleasures where time constraints, cost and no pressure to perform where the norm.

I hear this 'build to play' thing from many of the folks here, but I have no recollection of ever doing that. Checked with my mother, and she agrees. Seems that even as a kid, I took this whole building stuff rather seriously, and the results weren't playthings. Standards were, for all sorts of reasons, lower of course, but it seems the 'do this properly' mindset was there all along. It's hard to kick a lifetime habit for the blitz

I did use other people's discarded models and the Airfix squishy plastic figures and vehicles to destruction though, so it's not like I just didn't get the concept of playing with toy soldiers

Further evidence of wierdness, I guess

I am just happy tinkering with kits just as I did as a young one and that's the game for me. I model as relaxation and that's that. The Blitz gets me back to those days as a child and I'm happy with that.

Now that is the important bit.

[jssel]

Good conversation regarding the Blitzbau. Like all aspects of the hobby you can take or leave any portion of it. What I like all aspects of the Blitz. The selection of the kit, the planning strategy, overcoming unexpected obstacles and finally turning out a basically good effort. While none of mine are contest winners, I don't expect them to be. But like the movie says, "How do you beat boredom, Tyler? With adventure."

When I do a Blitz I am relatively assured that in around 12 hours I will have a completed model. In a month long GB, I will stagger around and if I do finish it will be in the eleventh hour. If there was a happy medium in there somewhere.

But there is no pressure for me and always great fun or I wouldn't do it.

[flakmonkey]

It's like cooking. You just get a feel for what will work. You don't even, in my experience, need a particularly compliant kit. Some right pigs have been successfully built over the years. I did a Dragon 1/48 Me-262 once.

For me, enamels are a no-no. Tamiya or Gunze acrylics thinned with lacqeur thinner cure in no time at all and cut, literally, hours from your build. Milliput is clearly out of the picture unless you have planned meticulously. Likewise, tube cement. Use a good MEK based liquid cement and CA wherever possible and use a hairdryer to speed up PVA cure times on canopies and the like. Tamiya's light-curing filler is a serious boost if you can find it and afford it, but otherwise common or garden Humbrol filler sets much more quickly than most other fillers I have used and works a treat into the bargain.

[ShaunW]

I did a Dragon 1/48 Me-262 once.

Yes, but you're you Flak. The rest of us are mere humans

[flakmonkey]

I did a Dragon 1/48 Me-262 once.

Yes, but you're you Flak. The rest of us are mere humans

Didn't even manage to start this year. Anyway I managed to score a DNF on a simple dimple Airfix new tool P-51 too. I'm a klutz.