SPA Modeler

LyleW wrote:Hope this turns out well. I'm sure you will do a great job. I (don't know why) bought one right after sending this to you. Permission to add some belts is granted.

Thanks, but no thanks for the permission. In my mind a proper review uses just what is in the box. After all, anybody who buys this kit, may not have access to or the skills for any After Market.

Stikpusher wrote:

LyleW wrote:Hope this turns out well. I'm sure you will do a great job. I (don't know why) bought one right after sending this to you. Permission to add some belts is granted.

Thanks, but no thanks for the permission. In my mind a proper review uses just what is in the box. After all, anybody who buys this kit, may not have access to or the skills for any After Market.

Thats a nice attitude to have in a review - so many of them don't follow that, and lob in as much AM as possible, so much that you never really know what you're going to get in the box. I'm sure those belts will pop out nicely with some painting.

Enjoying the review Stik - look forward to seeing more (taking notes to see how it's done).

JimD wrote:No way I'm dedicating that kind of time and shelf space to an OOB kit with rather poor (and inaccurate) cockpit detail...you'd think that they'd be more interested in a kit that looks spectacular than just what's available in the box.

Well, lets face it, kits like this are not marketed to the guy with a big wallet and lots of disposable income. They are for a more generalized target audience. Hence no PE or other multi media detail parts that can significantly boost a kit's price like some companies' kits. These are affordable, less complicated kits for the average modeler. A more advanced modeler can also buy this for a good price, buy all sorts of AM to accurize and/or dress it up, and still pay less than the sticker price of the same subject coming from another company.
I can't vouch for the cockpit yet, as I have not compared the kit parts to any photos. But I will be doing that soon as I begin the detail painting in the cockpit. And I will call out the good and the bad, as I did with the seats.

JimD wrote:I think seeing what CAN be done with the kit would sell it more than saying here's a vanilla OOB build....I mean what's the point? They already have the (usually mediocre) builds on the photos on the side of the box...use those? /opinion

The best reviews that I ever saw in a magazine were done where the kits were built strictly OOB. No paint, no filler, just the plastic and any decals. You saw exactly where the gaps were gonna be, fit problems, etc. Talk about forewarned is forearmed. Taking any kit, filling it full of AM just to see what can be built is not an honest review to me. It is something way beyond that.

I can easily trick out this cockpit with scratch work using sheet, strip, & rod styrene, and wire, a la Fermis or BSY here, and make it gorgeous. But then it will no longer be an honest review of what's in the box. That would be showing off what I can do, not what anybody can do with what they get in the box. Building the kit OOB to the best of my abilities, and calling out corrections such as painting errors are my point.

A kit like this CAN be spectacular OOB, with good modeling and painting skills. At least I think so.

I am with the OOB crowd for reviews. That tells me how good the product is. And articles with AM and scratch build add ons are also great as feature articles for instance to demonstrate the use of AM and showcase techniques.

For the question to which people Revell tries to sell there kits, this was addressed in the Dutch ipms magazine.
Every year the Dutch ipms visits Revell of Germany in Bunde. One of the marketing managers at this meeting told that they sell about 15% to hobbyists like us, 15% to kids and 70% to adults who do a single purchase/very irregulary buy a model. I was surprised by the high number and suspects that this is different for "hardcore" model brands like MPM.

Ok guys, I would really love to go in depth on the 1/32 jet market. There is so much to discuss here. But can we open another thread to do so, and leave this one about the Weasel build & review

Stik - just out of curiosity, does it say anywhere on the box what the finished dimensions of the model are supposed to be?