What model aircraft magazine should I get

[dromia]

On 3/17/2020 at 6:33 PM, Silver Fox said:

I've been a member of IPMS for 34 years and have never used Facebook. The magazine is a good general magazine and there are lots of local groups and SIGs to join. I wouldn't be without it

How do SIG members share and communicate, other than farcebook, if they don't use the IPMS forum?

 

Some SIG's are of interest to me but I cannot see how to engage especially as I have no desire in meeting with other people face to face. With the current pestilence situation group meetings will not be a wise option for those that do for while.

 

Perhaps this may help the IPMS forum find its place again?

[Silver Fox]

My SIG is old fashioned, we communicate through e-mails and and I produce a electronically distributed newsletter. We also meet at model shows, As I say I don't use Facebook.

[dromia]

That is good to know, is there any central way of finding out how the different SIGs operate other than speaking with them individually, the IPMS website is pretty thin on such information.

 

Apologies to the OP for going off topic here.

[John B (Sc)]

On 3/17/2020 at 11:08 PM, Paul Bradley said:

 

As a regular (though not so much recently) reviewer for three top magazines and the IPMS/USA website since 2001, I resent that very much. I've never shied away from objectively criticizing a product when reviewing kits, decals or books when it is necessary, nor do I recall any of my editors censoring my remarks. I do not go into 'attack mode,' like some on the Internet, because that is unfair and unnecessary, but I will always offer thoughtful criticism when warranted. 

 

I am a consumer of those items as well, I spend my hard-earned on products just like the rest of you; I would not knowingly mislead the rest of the modelling community. I am sure it is the case that some reviewers gloss over issues, but please don't tar us all with the same brush!

  Well said Paul.  I have also acted as a reviewer for magazines occasionally and also rather resent the implication.  I have never been asked to change a review to make it less critical.   I did on one occasion alert the editor of a magazine to let him know my review was quite negative. The review ran as written.  The manufacturer did not complain nor change their sample distribution habits -  fair criticism they were prepared to accept. 

 

My hope is that by commenting appropriately I can help other modellers avoid the pitfalls, limitations or instruction sheet errors I've found.  That is part of the fun of reviewing.

 

 

Edited March 29, 2020 by John B (Sc)
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[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

On 3/29/2020 at 6:10 PM, John B (Sc) said:

  Well said Paul.  I have also acted as a reviewer for magazines occasionally and also rather resent the implication.  I have never been asked to change a review to make it less critical.   I did on one occasion alert the editor of a magazine to let him know my review was quite negative. The review ran as written.  The manufacturer did not complain nor change their sample distribution habits -  fair criticism they were prepared to accept. 

 

My hope is that by commenting appropriately I can help other modellers avoid the pitfalls, limitations or instruction sheet errors I've found.  That is part of the fun of reviewing.

 

 

I'd echo these comments from John & Paul too. I've done builds for companies that are supporters of magazines and been honest. Its never been cut.  My feeling is, to be honest, that there is a small portion of the modelling community that is utterly resistant to any kind of change, and actually just likes to whinge.  Forums work well for people who won't or don't want to open themselves up to the free for all of social media. They provide great resources and community atmosphere, but there is (I hate to say this non-social media users here) the slight hint of the pub regulars sitting at the bar knowing it all and congratulating themselves for that. All the time.

As I did, and I still maintain. If you do not like articles in magazines, write one yourself. Editors are always receptive to new writers.

I love BM, and I love writing for magazines. We exist together, not in spite of each other. I'm "trying" to get more "random" punctuation in my articles too!

Jonners

 

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

You know Jon, the older I get (I'll turn 40 next year) the more convinced I am that there is a very vocal minority of people who grossly over estimate their qualification to comment on things. When one knows a little bit about something, for example from having first hand experience of something directly relevant, one can spot people who assume they know a lot of the subject but who clearly do not.

 

 

This is by no means limited to magazine articles or even just model making but all sorts of subjects. It is indeed entirely like pub regulars talking total pigswill about all manner of subjects thinking they are wise chiefly because there's nobody around to straighten out their erroneous assumptions.

 

People imagine things then convince themselves that it must be fact. Whether that's about magazine reviewers all being dishonest, the vast profits model companies must be making (if only that were true!), or even how stupid model companies must all be that none of them have yet made an injection moulded 1/48 Farley Fruitbat Mk.XIIb which would definitely be super popular because they'd buy one (but only if it was by Tamiya, with decals they like, and of course on sale at a "reasonable price" i.e. £6.99 Inc VAT), people are far more inclined to make statements based upon figments of their imagination than to simply pose the open question of "How does magazine reviewing work if the product is no good?"

 

There are, unfortunately, a noisy minority who do not wish to learn - they just want to be right.

[John B (Sc)]

Well said Jamie. (and thanks jonners)

Funny, there are times I think I see the that same Dunning-Kruger curve in my modelling,especially on more complex kits., I start of thinking -,  "Wow, this will be terrific and I can do this one perfectly, then the disillusionment seeps in! 

 

John B

[pacificmustang]

On 3/18/2020 at 7:13 PM, Jon Bryon said:

 

 

 

 

Model Airplane International - poor quality paper, annoying editorial style (huge overuse of gerunds) but, worst of all, is very thin on content and what content there is is usually repeated. How many Spitfires/Mustangs/Fw190s/Furies/etc. does a magazine need to feature? The impression is that this magazine will build and review everything and anything by Eduard. MAI has also been guilty of reprinting articles wholesale, which I resent as I've already paid for it and read it once. In the past the editor has let the content be driven (at least partially) by spats on the internet. On the plus side, the standard of modelling is usually quite good and the comment by Jonathan Mock always worth a read. I let my subscription lapse a couple of months ago and don't regret it.

 

 

Military Illustrated Modeller - bimonthly aviation edition has nice models and great production. I subscribed electronically for a long time. However, cost is very high and the content rather thin for subjects and scales I am interested in, so I've let it lapse. I really like Brett Green as an editor and think this is a good magazine.

 

A pretty good round up @Jon Bryon very similar to my own thoughts, but are you sure you have the above titles the right way around. Lol 

I think a lot of your criticisms of MAI actually apply to MIM, who have several times been guilty of republishing reviews that have already appeared on hyperscale, which -the same as you -annoys me no end, lots of 109 and 190 articles , and writing that has become increasingly lazy with copy and pasting being quite apparent. 
I took out a digital sub through Pocketmags as they had it on special, but did not renew it. I still have a sub with MAI, but the last couple of issues haven’t contained a lot that interested me, but I guess all magazines can be like that, as they must cater to a broad range. I do wish Doolittle would use a better quality paper though . I need to check out Airfix magazine based on the comments here

ive always had great success selling old mags at swap and sells for 50c each. I find at that price. I don’t take any back home 

Regards, and love your latest skyhawks

Bruce 

[Ed Russell]

On 5/1/2020 at 8:06 AM, John B (Sc) said:

Dunning-Kruger curve

 

On 5/1/2020 at 5:26 AM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

but all sorts of subjects

 

You can even set it to music.............

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdnH19KsVVc

 

[Filbert_Wang]

@AltcarBoB - Can I ask what mag you went with in the end and how you got on with it?

 

I'm fairly new to model building and have been presently surprised by how many magazines are on sale. My other interests (music, film, video gaming) have been utterly decimated over the past decade and quite a few favourites have gone belly-up. 

 

So it's good that there is still a choice at least with this hobby, although obviously I can't attest to how standards have changed. What I will say is that at least a magazine should have had (some) editing of content, something often absent from online blogs. 

 

A few I have enjoyed so far (I tend to pick up the odd mag, or specifically seek one out if it has a build that I specifically want to read about - courtesy of the absolutely wonderful catalogue lists on Scalemates.com)

- Airfix Monthly - I like the variety of this mag and most of the build logs are easy to understand. 

- Model Aircraft Monthly - probably my favourite, great layout, wonderful images and some great build logs (at a standard that I can't hope to achieve, but they look lovely!)

- MENG - expensive and not exhaustive content, but boy are there some lovely looking builds in there and it feels a quality publication. 

- Tamiya Monthly - I only buy very occasionally, as it's thin on content and printed on toilet paper, but enjoy reading about some of the oddball stuff (and they feature quite a few bike and vehicle kits, which is one of my areas of interest). 

 

Grateful if anyone has any other recommendations!

 

[AltcarBoB]

@Filbert_Wang I bought Scale Aircraft Modelling. I had a look at several and to be honest it would be hard to tell them apart of it wasn't for the cover. My second choice would have been Airfix Model World and I think I would have been just as happy if I had gone with that.

[Filbert_Wang]

11 minutes ago, AltcarBoB said:

@Filbert_Wang I bought Scale Aircraft Modelling. I had a look at several and to be honest it would be hard to tell them apart of it wasn't for the cover. My second choice would have been Airfix Model World and I think I would have been just as happy if I had gone with that.

Ah thanks for that - I will take a look. 

 

I thought it funny that there are two modelling mags with the same SAM acronym (this one and Scale Aviation Modeller). 

I imagine that they are run by two guys who hate each other's guts, can't stand to be in the same room, and both would be dead before changing the acronym of their magazines - carrying out regular planned attempts at sabotage by submitting builds of rubbish old vacuum kits to try and ruin the reputation of the other magazine. 

It will end with a fight to the death and them both falling over the edge of a waterfall (or something like that..)

[Graham Boak]

Scale Aircraft Modelling had collapsed, so one of the main contributors and another small team set up Scale Aviation Modelling.  But Alan Hall managed to regenerate Scale Aircraft Modelling so we ended up with two mags with similar titles.

[Des]

On 6/16/2020 at 4:48 PM, Filbert_Wang said:

It will end with a fight to the death and them both falling over the edge of a waterfall (or something like that..)

 Alan W. Hall who originally launched (and later re-launched) Scale Aircraft Modelling died at age 80 in November 2008.

[junglierating]

On 4/30/2020 at 8:26 PM, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

having first hand experience of something directly relevant, one can spot people who assume they know a lot of the subject but who clearly do

Wow I do think I agree....contentious but then I guess its a modelling site that caters for all and that allowance has to be made....i have looked at some comments which are clearly tosh and have been sucked in....normally because with 23 years in the mob and ten for a well know defence contractor I have some aviation knowledge.....bad thing to do 🤔

[junglierating]

On 6/17/2020 at 10:29 PM, Des said:

 Alan W. Hall who originally launched (and later re-launched) Scale Aircraft Modelling died at age 80 in November 2008.

Got to say I have SAM mags from 1979 to early 80s and I still find them hugely entertaining that the current magazines dont....maybe its because im not in to corporate hype(it rarely meets expectations.They now tend to be full of experts ...or at least to many of them and dont always cater for the amateur enthusiast who may not have the dosh to purchase all the associated paraphernalia....could be off putting for some.Also far to msny adverts.

Just my opinion though🤔😁

[Silver Fox]

I still have and treasure the Mike Keep drawings in the early SAMs. I still use them and feel the magazine lost it's way once they stopped. I believe the artist passed away  

[Graham Boak]

The magazine folded, and Mike Keep was a prime mover in the team producing Scale Aviation Magazine.  Then, indeed,  he died, at an early stage in the magazine's life (and also before SAM restarted?).

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

On 6/21/2020 at 6:52 PM, junglierating said:

Got to say I have SAM mags from 1979 to early 80s and I still find them hugely entertaining that the current magazines dont....maybe its because im not in to corporate hype(it rarely meets expectations.They now tend to be full of experts ...or at least to many of them and dont always cater for the amateur enthusiast who may not have the dosh to purchase all the associated paraphernalia....could be off putting for some.Also far to msny adverts.

Just my opinion though🤔😁

Hi - I'd be interested if you could expand on this a little please. 

Can you point to some examples where experts in magazines have not catered for amateur enthusiasts, or point to how you feel their articles have done this? Is it, for instance, tone? Do they use too many bits of "kit" ( i.e. tools and gadgets)? Do they assume too much knowledge of what might be called "advanced" modelling skills?  A preponderance of fashionable finishing techniques? I ask because I'm an amateur enthusiast and I also contribute to magazines, so I'm keen to know what you think we are getting wrong?  Also - and lets use this month's (July) Scale Aircraft Modelling as an example. It has 92 pages including the cover. How many adverts in that number of pages would be too much? And also what puts you off if you see an advert?

It would be great to have some further input on this. As a contributor we try to appeal to as catholic an audience as possible in an article, so its upsetting to think we might be being too highbrow, or some such other off-putting trait.

cheers

Jonners

Edited June 30, 2020 by Jon Kunac-Tabinor
"kit" edited for clarity of explanation

[Duncan B]

I mostly just look at the pictures!!

 

Duncan B

 

p.s. which is just as well because the captions are usually accompanying the wrong photos or repeat under every photo!!

[Des]

Problem looking back at the 'good old days' of anything was summed up by the late Tony Capstick in Capstick Comes Home (full version is on You Tube but not recommend to those of  a PC disposition)    . . . . .

 

Do you know, when I were a lad you could get a tram down into t'town, buy three new suits an' an overcoat, four pair o' good boots, go an' see Frank Randall at t'Palace Theatre, get blind drunk, 'ave some steak an' chips, bunch o' bananas an' three stone o' monkey nuts an' still 'ave change out of a farthing.

 

We'd lots o' things in them days they 'aven't got today - rickets, diphtheria, Hitler and my, we did look well goin' to school wi' no backside in us trousers an' all us little 'eads painted purple because we 'ad ringworm.

They don't know they're born today!!!

 

Nothing other than perhaps North Korea remains the same forever so tastes change , give it a year or two and it will all change again and perhaps with the clouds of economic despair hovering on the horizon might even see a return to grainy black and white images on the bog roll quality paper of our youth without a tastefully placed paint tin in sight.

[junglierating]

1 hour ago, Jon Kunac-Tabinor said:

Hi - I'd be interested if you could expand on this a little please. 

Can you point to some examples where experts in magazines have not catered for amateur enthusiasts, or point to how you feel their articles have done this? Is it, for instance, tone? Do they use too many bits of kit? Do they assume too much knowledge of what might be called "advanced" modelling skills?  A preponderance of fashionable finishing techniques? I ask because I'm an amateur enthusiast and I also contribute to magazines, so I'm keen to know what you think we are getting wrong?  Also - and lets use this month's (July) Scale Aircraft Modelling as an example. It has 92 pages including the cover. How many adverts in that number of pages would be too much? And also what puts you off if you see an advert?

It would be great to have some further input on this. As a contributor we try to appeal to as catholic an audience as possible in an article, so its upsetting to think we might be being too highbrow, or some such other off-putting trait.

cheers

Jonners

Hi - I'd be interested if you could expand on this a little please.

 

Jon, yep give me a marching pace to think of a reply and I will gladly do so....although maybe there is a certain amount of nostalgic dribble involved in what I say....but id like to be pro actively positive 😁

[Jon Kunac-Tabinor]

40 minutes ago, junglierating said:

Hi - I'd be interested if you could expand on this a little please.

 

Jon, yep give me a marching pace to think of a reply and I will gladly do so....although maybe there is a certain amount of nostalgic dribble involved in what I say....but id like to be pro actively positive 😁

Think on at a pace that suits. Glad to have your input. 

Ta muchly & nostalgic musings always accepted.

jonners

[Paul Bradley]

2 hours ago, Jon Kunac-Tabinor said:

Hi - I'd be interested if you could expand on this a little please. 

It would be great to have some further input on this. As a contributor we try to appeal to as catholic an audience as possible in an article, so its upsetting to think we might be being too highbrow, or some such other off-putting trait.
 

Seconded, and that applies to anyone dissatisfied with current magazines. I'm not an expert, but I know how to read and where to find information, and I'm happy to share. I'd rather not think I'm wasting my time contributing to magazines if all people want nowadays is 6 pages of over-weathering porn and no description of how to actually build the model and what might be wrong with it. Research-schmesearch, eh?

Edited June 29, 2020 by Paul Bradley

[Graham Boak]

4 hours ago, Jon Kunac-Tabinor said:

Can you point to some examples where experts in magazines have not catered for amateur enthusiasts, or point to how you feel their articles have done this? Is it, for instance, tone? Do they use too many bits of kit? Do they assume too much knowledge of what might be called "advanced" modelling skills?  A preponderance of fashionable finishing techniques? I ask because I'm an amateur enthusiast and I also contribute to magazines, so I'm keen to know what you think we are getting wrong?  Also - and lets use this month's (July) Scale Aircraft Modelling as an example. It has 92 pages including the cover. How many adverts in that number of pages would be too much? And also what puts you off if you see an advert?
 

I'd certainly go for rather less of the fashionable finishing techniques.  The latest issue of SAM had a nicely made Bf109E ruined by exaggerated shading techniques making the control surfaces look as though it'd been parked next to an exploding bomb, which had covered the aircraft with dirt.  Further, had I been that interested in such ridiculous extremes, I'm sure I would have been sated by the repetition month after month of much the same information.  This could be covered once a year in a Techniques article, and there'd be no complaint from here, but every article every month?   It isn't that too much knowledge is assumed, as much as far too much repetition of what is after all a fairly standardised process.

 

More generally, although it does apply to the same article, there are too many photos showing small incremental steps in the painting process.  Using the Hurricane build as an example: do we really need a photo to explain what the caption does perfectly well - that the builder found a small gap in the cowling that had to be held together?  Oh, look, here's the wings and fuselage waiting to go together.  Really distinctive that one, who'd have imagined that was so vital as to need a photo? Oh, look, they went together beautifully.  Oh, look, here's the next stage, which would also have done for showing how well the join worked.   Does anyone really need photos of every step, and illustrating every tin of paint?   (No.)

 

So we could see as many reviews in fewer pages, even with some dedicated generic modelling articles added, whilst losing nothing in information imparted.

 

I don't think that there's anything too wrong with the tone: if some contributors differ then ok, some people differ.  It's not a specific problem.  Nor the use of "too many" bits of the kit - I don't think I really understand that one.  The number of adverts doesn't seem excessive - they pay for the mag after all.

 

Possibly moving beyond what you asked, I do wish that the main central historical article regularly achieved the same standard of attention to detail as the Colour Conundrum, and also that the profiles showed the same attention to the colours.  The use of the simplified (Pantone?) colours are a strongly negative feature.  As a subscriber and maker of 1/72 aircraft, there's too often very little else of particular interest but seeing more accurate colour reproduction on the models than on the colour guidance (CC pages excepted) seems particularly wrong.   I guess that this would cost more to put right, but I'd be happy paying the same amount for a thinner but more tautly edited, higher quality, mag.