Collection Anxiety

In my not entirely casual reading of model magazines, it often seems to me that to be considered a world-class modeler, you have to specialize. That is, you have to have a defined "collection" that on the one hand allows you to hone techniques specific to that collection, and on the other hand which comes to be more of an oeuvre than a mere collection. I'm reminded of guys like Paul Boyer, who does US combat aircraft in 1/72nd scale, or Bob Steinbrunn, who did breathtaking 1/48th scale WWII aircraft, or Tony Greenland, whose 1/35th scale German WWII armor is astonishing.

At least once a week I issue what amounts to a personal press release about how I'm going to adhere in the future to some sort of collection rule. From here on out, nothing but spacecraft! From here on out, nothing but figures! From here on out, nothing but small-scale armor! I occasionally refer to these pronouncements at fatwas, but since I know they won't stick and I'll violate them just as soon as I possibly can, well, why risk blasphemy?

I just don't seem to have any modeling self-discipline at all. My model collection currently includes aircraft in scales from 1/32nd to 1/200th, warhips from 1/2400th to 1/72nd, figures from 9mm to 200mm, dinosaurs, spacecraft in paper, styrene and resin, small-scale armor, large-scale armor, 1/24th scale cars and trucks... The point isn't that I'm a wonderfully eclectic modeler who refuses to be bound by convention. No, the point really is that in modeling terms, I'm no better than a magpie, easily attracted by shiny objects and prone to collecting things that don't do much to advance my primary mission.

But what is my primary mission? When pressed for a short answer to the question "What sort of modeler am I" (and who among us hasn't been confronted by a knife-wielding thug in a dark alley who demands to know what sort of modeler we are?) I usually describe myself as an RMS modeler - that's "rockets, missiles and spacecraft".

RMS has strange rules, among them the fact that a nuclear-armed missile is as legitimate as a deep space probe. But never mind; we accept that missiles are just spacecraft of a different sort, and we get on with it. But the agony of being an RMS modeler is that the glory days of RMS modeling are long since over with. All those great kits from the Olden Days exist now as nothing more than fond memories, though every now and then Revell or Glencoe dusts off a mold and reissues something Decidedly Cool. To keep busy in RMS modeling, you've either got to dip into the world of spendy garage resin kits (which I have) and paper (which I also have done, at least until my Epson printer developed cyan constipation and the screaming black squirts, and all because I had the nerve to try to print out the planet Mars.)

RMS in the end is kind of frustrating. The only kits available in hobby shops are various iterations of the Space Shuttle, and they cloy after a while. How many Columbia memorial kits can you really do before the Flying Spaghetti Monster says "Enough already"? Every now and then a reissue will provoke a flurry of activity on my bench. But unless you're prepared to pay big bucks for imported resin or build paper models, RMS just isn't active enough to keep a relatively productive magpie busy. And there's no way of knowing exactly what shiny objects will take the bored magpie's eye. One month it was 1/72nd scale torpedo boats. Another time it was HO-scale model railroad buildings. 25mm Dungeons & Dragons figures keep making comebacks, like Rocky without the theme music and or the heavy scent of Ben-Gay. Dinosaurs! I've gone through a couple of dinosaur phases, and a third one is starting, based on the observation that there are now five unbuilt dinosaur kits in The Pile.

But even so, there are certain types of modeling that I simply don't do. Some of them are just too much work, like sailing ships, customized car models, and superdetailed anythings. Others simply aren't shiny enough. I figure over the years I've built an entire geschwader of Me-109s, and enough Spitfires and Mustangs to give the Allies command of the skies, and I just don't need more. And I also refuse to subscribe to the Esoteric German Tank Of The Month Club, and I personally find aircraft carriers unrewarding.

So what am I to do? Shamble along with no coherence and order in my collection and building habits, or go to some expensive spa in the hills of New Hampshire and take the Collection Cure? Eh, well, as much as I'd like to see New Hampshire someday, I think I'll settle for a messy collection.