Way back in the early 90s in college I got my modeling itch back but I thought to arm myself with some basic modeling skill first. I found this book at a bookstore (remember those things?) and read it before attempting my first aircraft kit, a Hasegawa 1/72 F-16A kit.
As you can see, the book covers a lot of genres of the hobby. But I was partial to the aircraft section.
I did read this book cover to cover though.
Some of the tips are now somewhat obselete but it gives some insight into how problems were solved back then.
I’ll always remember the F-18 build with the crazy drain-like seam lines and how the writer managed to finish it so nicely. I would have given up and bought a better kit (in fact, my 2nd kit was the Hasegawa F-18A).
This photo of the finished kit was highly influential on my views about scale modeling: it turns out, given enough effort, you CAN polish a turd…
Part 4 of a series