Reality 'v' expectation?

[smusno]

Some of you may have noticed, I like space ships. Even now, now im knee deep in wire and LED's, my dad still says to me "You always did love that ship". Im talking Enterprise. Particularly, the refit movie enterprise. And my revived thirst for knowledge about it. What colour was it, what are they, what does that do?

This leaves me with an............. unexpected problem.

I cant finish one!

Have you ever heard of the saying "Never meet your heroes"? It suggests the perception, the dream will invariably be better than the reality. And I have found this with trying to re-create one of my idols. The image in my head of all that lovely matt/gloss/pearl finish, the grey tone, the illumination lights in all the right places is such a dreamy constant in my minds eye.......... The reality i am capable of creating falls SO short, I cant bare to look it.

I am loving my voyager build, I have just ordered a 350 K-BoP, I can do these things because I can manage my expectation of them.


Did you start modelling because of modelling, or was it to bring something you felt so close to alive?


Should I keep my goals, but delay my expectations?

Or, would you see your verve to attain such a lofty goal as a spur to keep trying? Would you rather 20 7/10 attempts. Or keep trying other things untill you had the confidence to have "The One"?





A rambling smusno.

Discuss.

 

[Solander]

As for me I came to modeling because of the result but not the process
I'm pretty much obsessed of starships and sci-fi vehicles, and have been since I remember myself, so the thing that pushed me into scale modeling was initially the desire to hold my idols in own hands.
That certainly puts the border of my expectations from my own work higher and often causes problems. You see, I am never glad with my work. NEVER. Each time I look at the model during my working on it, I see all those places I could do better, all my mistakes and I think I'm just the kind of person who can't help bothering about all that stuff. But, knowing that about myself, I've also found that when I only finish a project, put the new model on a shelf and let it sit there for a while, only the overal impresion of the result is what's left in head. All those faulty places that where before your eyes during working on the model shade away, and you look at the result under a new angle, as a side viewer, and then it looks much better. So I just have to do all my best during my work on a new model, but don't dig till head into reaching the absolute perfection, cause, as philosophers say, perfection is unreachable. And if I do, I'll just never finish anything at all => don't gain any experience => won't make my next model better.
On your Ent.. Well, if I were You, I'd try my hands on it.
From my point of view, building models which don't seem anything special to you in order to improve your skills without being afraid to not reach own expectations is not very good, as in that case you lose a very-very important thing: excitement from the process of building. And as building occupies the 99% of time that you'll spend interacting with your model, if its possible to say so, gaining as much of positive emotions from that is necessary. Well, I think its hobby - why do we do it in the end if not for pleasure?

 

[Grendels]

From my point of view, building models which don't seem anything special to you in order to improve your skills without being afraid to not reach own expectations is not very good, as in that case you lose a very-very important thing: excitement from the process of building. And as building occupies the 99% of time that you'll spend interacting with your model, if its possible to say so, gaining as much of positive emotions from that is necessary. Well, I think its hobby - why do we do it in the end if not for pleasure?

Well said, I was just about to say almost the same thing when you responded. I build the models I want to build. Even if they are a cheap kit to experiment on. Like Desslok's command cruiser. It was cheap, I experimented on it with different types of seam filling, but I wanted to build that kit.

I have the 1/350 refit kit and won't touch it because I know my skills are not quite there. (They are getting really close, so I will get to is soon!) Painting up that model will be a challenge. Take a read of this site: http://www.olsenart.com/strek.html

It is written by the man who painted her up for the movie.

So this is my advice: Finish up that Voyager, you are doing good work on her. Then get yourself a few small cheap kits that you want to build. Polar lights has quite a few of them in Star Trek, and Ebay is a great place to find old out of print kits. And build a few up all the way.

Like Solander, I am never 100% happy with my builds. I doubt I ever will be because I am too harsh of a critic of my own work. But I keep building and with time you will get better.

I will also choose a kit to build to test out new skills. For example, for my first lighted kit in years, I built up a Viper from Battlestar Galaticia. It was a very easy kit to light, then I progressed onto a harder kit. In this way I build up my skills to meet the model.

 

[Quaralane]

The advice from Solander and Grendels is good and sound.

Take your time with Voyager. Finish her up. Do her right first.
Work up to your dream ship.
Enterprise can be gorgeous when done.
Don't saddle yourself with images of rebuilding the studio model. Make her YOURS. Add some personal touches.
Most of all, work to enjoy the build