Modeling club bias against WWI aircraft?

[nmroberto]

Anyone here belong to a model building club which has contests?  I belong to a local club and noticed that WWI aircraft never seem to win any of the monthly open contests.  Usually the aircraft winners are modern.

Last month, for example, the winning model aircraft was an airliner with a nice paint job but no detailing of any sort. They did have a special theme contest a couple of months ago featuring Fockers.  The winner was a DVII with no rigging, joint seams were unfilled and  visible, and no weathering of any kind. It did have pretty colors. 

Maybe I'm just prejudiced after seeing the great builds here.

[lcarroll]

Robert,
   We WWI Aircraft Modellers are rare when compared to Model Builders in general. I can offer, for example, the Model Competition that I attend annually; it is represented as the Western Canadian Regional Contest and attracts several hundred model builders from roughly the western one half of this huge country. Over the past several years there have been less then a dozen WWI Aircraft Models on display annually;  several of us including our current Modeller of the Month Gary, and myself, have multiple entries. Total Models seem to vary from 5-700 year to year at this event thus less then a dozen from our genre indicates what a small group we really are! I should add that our Category isn't even for just WWI subjects, rather we enter as "Multi Winged and/or Wire Braced".
   This past Summer I had the pleasure of attending a similar event in Eastern Canada, CapCon in our National Capital of Ottawa and found representation there more or less identical to my western experience.
   So we are either a very elite, exclusive, and rare bunch of specially talented artists or merely a few eccentrics on the very edge of the Model Aircraft Building community . Either way I agree, we are most often ignored when it comes to recognition, and I don't see that changing in the future.
Cheers,
Lance

[Kai]

Modelling clubs tend to be social events - any top-class modelling is purely coincidental!

[James]

I wonder why that is? I got into World War I aviation big time about 7 years ago and I always thought it was just as popular, if not more popular than World War II aviation. I mean, MvR - The Red Baron, is the Babe Ruth of aviation. I mean, who hasn't heard of him ? You can't say that about any World War II aviators. Boy, did I learn fast that World War I aviation was not that popular at all. Finding books, what little there is, and even model kits ishard at times. It is almost like Korean War aviation, not that popular and not much written about it. At least Wingnut have produced some kits that no one ever thought would be done in 1/32. That is why I'm surprised that you don't hardly see World War I aircraft at model competitions.   

[IanB]

My local club on Cape Cod is very small, maybe only 8 or 9 regulars: there's me, a 1:72 German armour builder, a guy who does the most amazing scratchbuilt fire fighting vehicles, and the rest are cars or whatever takes their fancy! The only competition I attend annually is Valleycon in Chicopee, Massachusetts and there are only 3 or 4 regular WWI exhibitors including myself, but there is a special award for best WWI aircraft, which is nice. We also enter under "rigged and multi-wing" but there are very few, if any, in that class other than WWI aircraft.
 I prefer the "elite" label myself: although we all know that rigging isn't as hard as it looks, that's what puts so many off, I think!

Ian

[lone modeller]

Having joined a modelling club about 18 months ago my experience has been similar to the rest. I was introduced to the club by Epeeman (Dave) and found that we were the only two modellers who presented any form of multi-winged aircraft (Dave also models interwar as well as other subjects). I was also surprised that there are very few scratch builders in the club (sadly we lost one recently - a very talented modeller indeed), and that I am the only one who builds aeroplanes.

Yes it would seem that we lie on the very fringes of the modelling world, (some might say we even lie beyond the fringe!) and that we therefore must be eccentric. I do not mind being beyond the fringe or eccentric - hence my handle for websites. I have long learned that being different has its drawbacks - and advantages.

Stephen.

[vincentm]

And among the modellers at the edge of a/c modelling, we who make 1:72 models are at the edge of the edge. Almost outside so to say...No large model brand builds 1:72 WWI models any longer. The existing Airfix, Revell or Academy kits are 40 or 50-year old tooling, more toys than serious models. You have to deal with Roden, MAC, Eastern Express, Toko, Eduard or AZ Models and that's about all. Fortunately they make nice accurate kits most of the times, but nothing that could compare to a WNW 1:72 biplane regarding the building...or Tamiya for instance.

But on the other hand, those very small and detailed models seem to attract people at model shows or in your showcases. In my living-room, the non-specialists usually watch the WWI shelves with more interest than the WWII ones. First because the overall colors became dull, and the little stringbags look more difficult to build.

[Ernie]

Without sounding...cough...smug, you could say they don't know what the're missing.

Cheers,
Ernie

[nmroberto]

So, I see it's not just paranoid jealousy on my part.   

I've come to the conclusion, that after attending several meetings of the local club,  the build quality of a model isn't that important,it's the paint job that catches the judges attention.  Like magpies, they are attracted to bright shiny objects.

[drdave]

[img]/http://s1230.photobucket.com/user/dpogson/media/P1030497b_zpsuwxdslxb.jpg.html[img]


This won, probably partly because of the scheme and rigging.

[Thumbs up]

Would Leonardo Da Vinci join a modelling club?

[Des]

Would Leonardo Da Vinci join a modelling club?

Why would he, there was no competition

Des.

[Monty]

There are some interesting thoughts and opinions in this thread! I can only argue from our local (very small) South African perspective - and yes, here WW1 aircraft models are both respected and now turn up regularly in competitions. I always say: If you want to do well in a competition, go Big, Bright and Beautiful... that never seems to fail. There was a time when the complexity and detail, and dare we say the finesse of WW1 aircraft and their rigging was an almost sure way to success in competitions, now it seems to count for less... I can appreciate the work involved, but the judges still go for B,B and B!

Interesting to hear about the International perspective...

Regards,

Marc

[lone modeller]

There are some interesting thoughts and opinions in this thread! I can only argue from our local (very small) South African perspective - and yes, here WW1 aircraft models are both respected and now turn up regularly in competitions. I always say: If you want to do well in a competition, go Big, Bright and Beautiful... that never seems to fail. There was a time when the complexity and detail, and dare we say the finesse of WW1 aircraft and their rigging was an almost sure way to success in competitions, now it seems to count for less... I can appreciate the work involved, but the judges still go for B,B and B!

Marc

which proves my point about being out on a limb. I have never been one to be with the crowd (that is my temperament), and I do think that modelling is like most other aspects of life - dominated by fashion. As they say in Yorkshire:

"Never mind the quality, feel the width!"

[Squiffy]

When it comes to clubs I take the same opinion as that of Graucho Marx.