The Fine Art Of Model Building From Plastic Kit Form
Created | Updated Jan 29, 2006
Hello to all you interested people. Here is a guide to give you step by step instructions on how to build a model kit.
(N.B This is for general model kits, not wargames).
The first step is to go to a model shop and get your supplies.
(Once, I would have recommended Beatties, but if the Manchester branch was any guide, they got bored with selling models, diversified into general toys and computer games and as a result lost their unique selling point – model kits – and got the double whammy of not being able to sell computer games either, as there were LOTS of dedicated shops out there that had cornered the market and were far better at selling computer games. So Beatties went bust. 1)
Dedicated model shops may be harder to find than they were, but every medium sized town will have one at least. Check out the small ads in the back of Military Modelling or Military Modelcraft International (the big-selling hobby mags and “trade press” for professionals). You can buy the magazines in Smiths.
"Craft" stores such as Hobbicraft may also carry a good selection of models - it's always worth looking! But the small dedicated model shop is where you are most likely to find staff who are modellers, know the hobby, and can put you and your interest in touch with each other: all the shops I've known have been pleased to order models for me, even from obscure small suppliers.
You will need:
A model kit. Many companies make kits, but for a first time person something simple is recommended. Model manufacturers now tend to “grade” their models according to complexity. Airfix uses a “flying hours” system – the less “flying hours”, the easier the build. Revell labels every kit with a “skill level” ranging from one to six; the lower the number, the less skill and experience are necessary. For very young people, for instance, children and total newcomers, "skill 1" models would be recommended. These are snap together and require no paint. The skill level is prominently displayed on the side of the box. For older people, (8 upwards) "skill 2" is recommended, which requires glue and paint. They are fairly easy and they go all the way up to skill 5 or 6, which one person once described as 'insane and contains submicroscopic pieces that you can snort'.
A very obvious tip – so obvious that it tends to be overlooked – is always to pick a model topic you personally find interesting and attractive. This means the modeller is less likely to run out of interest and motivation halfway through and leave the thing half finished!
Scales:
Models come in different scales. You can have 1/72nd models which means that the model is 72 times smaller than the original e.g. a tank. 1/35 scale are larger and more detailed. There are many different sizes of model. It is best to start small. There are also lots of models to choose from.
Scale is a matter of personal preference. There are hardcore modellers out there who have gone so far as to work in 1:1 scale 2
A digression on full-scale 1:1 modelling:
1:1 scale modellers tend to be energetic outdoor types with money to spend, time on their hands, and an engineering background. They might start with a Red Army surplus T-60 tank, for instance, and remodel the exterior so that it is indistinguishable from a WW2 German Tiger tank. This is then rented out to film studios and TV producers who have learnt that only THREE Tiger Tanks are preserved anywhere in the world, and only ONE is capable of moving under its own steam. The lack of authentic preserved German tanks from WW2 is a headache to TV and film producers, who are creating for an informed audience and who know that if they use anything other than what appears to be the real thing their film will be slated for lack of accuracy. 3
Supplies (tools and things):
Now you have the model, you need supplies. First you will need a craft knife or a pair of sprue cutters. Sprue cutters are better as small pieces tend to shatter when cut with a knife. If you prefer, use a Stanley knife to cut the sprue around the model and then take all the bits of sprue off.
Then you will need model glue called Poly liquid or cement. Cement is a lot better than liquid as it has a thicker consistency and is better for gluing and is less messy. It normally comes in a tube or bottle. You can get bottles with a needle applicator which is very handy as well. Highly recommended.
A useful extra buy is a packet of needle files, which can be picked up for about a quid. Coming an a variety of shapes and textures, these versatile files may be used for cleaning, fine-shaping, opening up location holes, et c, and certainly justify their cost.
You will then need paint and brushes. Acrylic paint is best, as it is water based and can be cleaned off fingers and brushes with hot, soapy water. Enamel paint (for the more daring) requires white spirit cleaning fluid. Both paints DO NOT come out of clothes. With brushes, to start you will need a large surface brush. Then get a fine detail brush. The brushes come in numbers to show how big they are. 1 upwards are large surface. 0, 00, 000, 5/0 and 10/0 are fine detail. Start with about 00. A word about the paint. Get the same make as the model i.e. Revell model requires Revell paint. This is a must, because the paints are numbered to correspond with the model. The corresponding paint numbers are on the side of the box i.e. Revell 'anthracite grey' is number 9. The number of the colour is at the front of the rack and on the lid of the pot. It is always best though, to mix certain colours as paints are often not cheap e.g. mix red with yellow to get orange. You could also get a cheap version as a substitute if you can find them and can also substitute shades for a colour that is similar.
You need to find a cutting mat, (at the VERY least, a small off cut of wood or a ceramic tile). You need something to cut against that will allow you to safely use some very sharp blades. Let’s face facts: plastic is the enemy of sharp knives. Nothing blunts a razor edge more than polystyrene or polythene. However, a dedicated cutting mat is the best choice, for several reasons. It treats your blades more kindly than wood, ceramic or glass would. It is non-slip. This is an underappreciated quality of cutting mats, but just try making the same cut along a ruler’s edge held against a glass or ceramic surface…. (Ah, welcome back. Only seven stitches? You were lucky) Finally, a dedicated mat spares damage to any important surface, ie a dining table, that might otherwise accumulate unsightly razor scratches and tool gouges. In these circumstances, the careless modeller is sure to acquire gouges of a different kind, from she to whom the table surface is precious, be she mother or wife or other significant female.
So get a cutting mat - it spares much grief. Don’t worry about the cost: I’ve seen these things going VERY cheap in discount bookstores or thrown in as freebies with artist’s tools from specialist art shops. My current cutting mat was a freebie when I bought a circle cutting tool!
Building:
Now on to the building! Younger people (10 and under) will need adult supervision. Open your box. Inside, there should be plastic sprues with the pieces on them, instructions for building and painting, a transfer sheet and maybe some information on the model. READ THE SAFETY INSTUCTIONS BEFORE STARTING! And all the other information. In there are all the symbols you will encounter during construction. Over the years, what really amounts to a "universal language" has evolved where the same common symbols have been taken up by all manufacturers, regardless of nationality, geographical location or preferred orthography.
Open the instructions and start with section one. The pieces are numbered, e.g. a3, b7 etc. The letter tells you what sprue it is on and the number tells you the piece that you need. Cut off the pieces with the cutters or knife and shave off the little nobbles on the pieces using a file or emery board. (One of your needle files may be used to rub the cutting point smooth and hide all trace that it was ever connected to a sprue) If using a knife, place the sprue on the cutting surface and press the blade downwards on the join. If you can, twist the piece off the sprue.
There is also the "flash" problem, particularly with older kits, where a thin web or film of plastic appears where it shouldn't and needs to be gently trimmed back to the line of the original part. It is usually self-evident which bits are flash and which you need to keep, but proceed with caution and reference to the part as it appears in the instruction leaflet. Anything on the part which is not on the drawing in the instruction book is flash. Remove.
Put a bit of glue onto your cutting surface and using a cocktail stick, apply the glue sparingly, onto the edge of the piece that will be glued. This is where the needle applicator on the "professional" glue comes in VERY handy, as the tiniest amount of glue may be put exactly where it is needed.
If the piece is to be glued, it is normally in a white circle or there is a symbol that looks like a tube of glue.
Repeat these 2 steps until the model is finished. Now to paint the model.
In the back of the book, there are the painting instructions. Each shade on the picture represents a colour, which is on the key. The colours are sometimes a letter, which corresponds to the table at the front of the instructions. Using the large brush, paint the large areas as shown on the diagram. Wait for the large area to dry then move onto the next large area if any and so on. Clean out your brush in a pot (hot water for acrylics and white spirit for enamels) after each colour used and replace the lid. Then move on to the small areas and use the fine detail brush for those. When the painting is complete and dry, you can start applying transfers.
Transfers:
First make sure that the area is clean of dirt and grease. Get your transfer sheet. Each transfer is numbered. If you look back through the instructions, there will be numbers corresponding to the transfers. The transfer numbers will be in another type of symbol or shape. It will tell you at the front of the instructions. To apply a transfer, cut it out carefully with scissors, making sure you don't cut through any other transfer. Place the transfer in warm hot water for about 30 seconds, using tweezers. Slide the transfer onto a knife, then onto a model, using a cocktail stick (not the one used for glue). It is easiest to use a craft knife for applying transfers. Then, get a clean brush, dip it in water, wipe off any excess and brush it over the transfer, taking care not to pick up the transfer with the brush. Do this for all the transfers and leave to dry.
More advanced modellers tend to supplement bought decal sheets with other tricks of the trade. Dry-rub Letraset transfers, for instance, are useful for serial numbers and brief texts, such as vehicle or aircraft "names". And if your modelling favours a nation whose national insignia is angular and straight-edged - German crosses, for instance, or the Finnish hakaristi - why not try painting it on? With a steady hand,or failing that, masking tape, nothing is impossible. Really advanced modellers aren't daunted by roundels (RAF insignia) or the Yin/Yang, possibly the most dificult of the lot4I've seen these as hand-painted insignia - the trick is using stencils and draughtsmans' compasses, apparently.
Well done. You have completed the model. As you get more confident, go up a skill and maybe try specialised equipment like an airbrush. This is a great way to spend time and have fun.
When you have many models, you can build dioramas. These are scenes, that are made using models e.g. a war scene.
1There is still an empty hard-to-let store in the Arndale Centre that once was Beatties. Old-timers like me bow our heads in memory as we pass. Beatties was once a dedicated model shop over the road in Spring Gardens and a Mecca for modellers. Then central Manchester was bombed, and Beatties was at Ground Zero. With Spring Gardens destroyed, the only premises they could get were in the Arndale Centre at three or four times their previous rent, and the final End was not long in coming. 2 In the Monty Python’s Flying Circus spin-off, Tomkinson’s Schooldays , the hero, Tomkinson, played by Michael Palin, recounts his life at one of England’s most sadistic and terrifying public schools. Tomkinson briefly finds escape at the School Modelling Club, but his teacher, played by Terry Jones, quibbles at his choice of modelling topic and the scale he has chosen to work in. Alas copyright prevents me from citing the scene in full, but in a room full of schoolboys quietly working on 1:72 or 1:600 model ships, Tomkinson is extremely conspicuous on a gantry halfway up the side of a full-sized icebreaker, adding the final touches with a welding torch. In true Monty Python style, a shouted debate ensues on the limits of modelling as a hobby, culminating in Terry Jones fulminating If it’s one in one scale, Tomkinson, then it’s not a model, it’s an ICEBREAKER! Now get it melted down for scrap this minute!”3 The days when a film-maker could do The Battle of the Bulge with American Army General Pershing tanks pretending to be King Tigers, or A Bridge Too Far with Dutch Army Leopard tanks pretending to be WW2 Panthers, are long gone. Filmgoers are too knowledgeable to be conned like that any more. The problem is, 4,500 Tiger Tanks have been reduced to three surviving museum exhibits; only half a dozen Panthers out of 7,000 built survive anywhere in the world; and any film or TV series needing authentic-looking German armour has to get it from somewhere. So enter the 1:1 modellers who will build these things for you! Take a very close look at Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers, preferably in the company of somebody who is knowledgeable about German tanks. That convincing-looking Tiger is actually a Russian-built T34 with a makeover - new bodywork to make it look like a Tiger. And that StuG III assault gun started life as a British army troop carrier. Again it's been stripped down to the chassis and had a new body built on. Oh, that Hanomag 251 troop carrier? Oh yes, that's just a wood and fibreglass shell on a LandRover chassis. But convincing, aren't they?4 Aviation enthusiasts will know that two of the world's air forces use the Yin/Yang as a national emblem. Unsurprisingly, one is South Korea (red/blue). The other nation that used the yin/yang, this time in orange/green, was the Republic of Ireland... I'd love to know the back-story to this.
