The different shades of one same thing ...
By Mario Covalski
This month’s cover note is about a Protar kit, the uncommon, difficult, and expensive (if you can get one) 1/12 scale McLaren MP4/ 2, and the note is by our good friend and collaborator Dan Parrat.
A few months ago I got an e-mail from a Modeler Site reader who also actively participates in several forums on car modeling. You really have to listen to what it is said in these forums. As usual there is much "noise" but there are many valuable opinions and many outstanding modelers that you will never come to know outside the Internet environment.
Summing up, this e-mail message said "Mario, I would like to publish some pictures of a model I am about to finish, but you have already published a similar one". The idea behind this message was "if you have already shown your model, why would I publish mine".
This is really a very simple fact but I gave it a good deal of thinking. I gave an answer to this friend but now I want to share my thoughts as well as my doubts.
Back in 1991 I built my first Tamiya's 1/12 Ferrari 641 and I was really excited and moved. After so many years the giant has finally woke up! We can see that the quality of this kit is excellent just by taking a look at the engine, cast as one piece. I must say that my skills at that time were somewhat half-way between what they are today and what they were 20 years ago when I was still painting with a brush (while Paul Budzik was already building amazing models; he is my same age and I admire him very much). I really built a plain model, without any details - just the ones indicated in the instructions manual -, and painted it with spray.
Some years later, I built my second and then my third kit. I still keep the last one and what was for me at that time a very good detailed model, today is a "straight-from the box" model. I am currently in the process of building my fourth Ferrari 641, this one will surely be a superdetailed model, but I cannot say that it will be better or worse than those that inspired me; I'm sure it will just be different.
I think this is the bottom line. If we have one hundred kits built by different modelers or by the same modeler at different stages, they will surely look different. These models will exhibit a different vision of one same thing, they will have something better or worse here or there, but I am sure that they will always offer something different. This is really the beauty of our hobby, the different shades of one same thing ... just like life itself.
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During 2003, Modeler Site issued a special edition about this model, built by yours truly, with all the necessary pictures and information, and although I am sure that Dan’s model is a lot better than mine, the question is... do we need another note on the same subject?.
I asked Dan to write this article a year ago, even when I was about to publish mine, and YES, I think this note is necessary and is a good modeling exercise about different points of view and abilities on the same subject; this is not a competition to see which one is better, is just plain collaboration and friendship.
On September 2001 our editorial was about this same theme, which I would like to bring up this month, because this editorial represents my way of thinking about this subject.
Thank you Dan for your friendship, and for sharing with us such a beautiful model, and your modeling talent.
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