A matter of brand

[BarryW]

I have seen, elsewhere, many a discussion over what's the 'best brand' but such discussions are pointless.

Firstly there is a matter of what constitutes 'the best' making any such claims a matter of personal preference than any kind of absolute truth.

It can depend on what genre of modelling, what scale, what is your preference for display, whether you enjoy the challenge involved in fighting a kit into submission and so on. Also, of course, long standing brands will have older kits that are simply not up to the standards of what they now produce. Indeed some people will have been prejudiced against a company because they have built an old, flawed kit and have not bothered to try them again and see what their newer kits are like. I often see Airfix a 'victim' of that kind of thing.

So allowing for that let's see what your brand preferences are? With explanations of why and what 'floats your boat' and the criteria by which you judge them.

My judgement is based on the following.
1. 1/32 scale aircraft with WW2 subjecting taking preference.
2. I don't like fighting a kit and for me a challenge comes from obtaining a painted and weathered finish I feel proud of. So I want a well engineered good fitting kit.
3/ I also want accuracy without being obsessive about it.

Taking into account all this I rank my top three brands as follows:

3rd. Zoukei Mura. I love their ambition and the different approach to design and engineering. They certainly present a real challenge when it comes to a build offering amazing detail and overall decent fit. If you don't get each stage exactly right it will lead to problems later in the build. Not for novices.

2nd. Tamiya. They get a balance between buildability, detail and fit. You can go wrong with them and, like ZM, if so it is down to what you do. I remember the three 1/32 Tammy Spifires I built. Often people criticise the fit of the engine cowls but after two builds that demonstrated such a problem, my third build showed perfect fit, proving that I, not Tamiya, was the problem.

1st place. Kotare. Though I have built only one, with one more in the stash, these have replaced Tamiya in the number one slot because they give me all I want and need from a kit. Amazing detail and accuracy, superb research that their instructions can be held on to as a reference source for other builds. They have great fit, and brilliantly engineered. They also take this slot because they produce kits optimised for what I want out of a kit. In other words I am not spending time building up engines and internal structure that won't be seen, as someone who likes my aircraft with closed panels. They provide the most detailed cockpit interiors I have seen with a much lower part count overall. I consider the Spitfire 1 build to be my most enjoyable ever. I now have one built, one in the stash, and two on preorder and looking forward to preordering more new releases when available. These are the only company I place preorders for and one of two with whom I will buy without checking out reviews (Tamiya being the other)

Special mentions.
I do like a couple of other companies who stand out. iCM who produce some really interesting subjects in 1/32 and HKM who also produce some really interesting 1/32s as well. Neither have something special as my top three so.

Over to you.

 

[urumomo]

Man declares , " such discussions are pointless. " , kicks off said discussion

 

[BarryW]

Man declares , " such discussions are pointless. " , kicks off said discussion

I was making the point that context is needed. Such discussions are indeed pointless without context and my context was given and invited other to contribute with their context.

 

[Jakko]

some people will have been prejudiced against a company because they have built an old, flawed kit and have not bothered to try them again and see what their newer kits are like.

This is something you read quite a bit, I agree. IMHO, it's most frequently a complaint from modellers on the left side of this diagram:

That is, ones who haven't got as much experience and skill as they think they do, and then go and build models that are more difficult than they're used to — often for the reason you mention: the kit being old and not up to modern standards.

Which doesn't make it a bad kit — it just makes it a kit that needs more work and more skill to build even straight from the box than those that came out in recent years from high-end manufacturers.

The bad side of this, IMHO, is that these modellers often seem to get put off a particular brand entirely, without even considering it anymore even when their skills have progressed.

For myself, I really don't care: depending on what takes my fancy, I'll just as happily build a modern Tamiya "shake-and-bake" kit as a 1990s Skif kit where you have to work on every part, either to get it to fit or to correct its wrong details and shapes. I prefer kits that are well-detailed and correct already, but don't really care about fit much — I know can always make things fit, and I have no qualms whatsoever about putting in a good deal of effort to correct what many consider minor accuracy issues. Or major ones But, without trying to blow my own trumpet, based on what people have told me, I think this is probably because I fall into the green part of that same diagram.

 

[Edbert]

3rd. Zoukei Mura.

2nd. Tamiya.

1st place. Kotare.

ZERO dispute with the top 3!

I might swap out #2 and #3 depending on which kits we're comparing. The Bf109-G14 from ZM was pure joy except for the wing fillets, their J2M3 did not have this. But Mr. T. made some sub-par kits back in the day, nothing recent that I have seen, but I've not built their 1/32nd kits (their 1/48 Lightning and Phantom II are awesome) so cannot really say.

But #1, yeah, just joy! Not cheap (neither are the other two) but worth every penny.

 

[BarryW]

ZERO dispute with the top 3!

I might swap out #2 and #3 depending on which kits we're comparing. The Bf109-G14 from ZM was pure joy except for the wing fillets, their J2M3 did not have this. But Mr. T. made some sub-par kits back in the day, nothing recent that I have seen, but I've not built their 1/32nd kits (their 1/48 Lightning and Phantom II are awesome) so cannot really say.

But #1, yeah, just joy! Not cheap (neither are the other two) but worth every penny.

You really should build the Tamiya 1/32 WW2 warbirds, they are amazing kits.

The challenges presented by all three of these brands (I refer only to new kits) is not fit, it's how we fit them. For instance, the Tamiya Spitfires, I built an example of all three of the Marks they produced. A common critique of them is engine panel fit, something I would have agreed with after my MkXVI build, then I built the MkIX and again there were fit issues but easier to correct
(mind you the Mk XVI issues were not difficult to put right either), with my Mk VIII the panels went together perfectly not adjustments needed. Remember the engineering is the same across all three kits. That proves that Tamiya got it right and the issues were down to the builder. This is exactly the same with the other two, builder issues create the problems, a result of the complex engineering. I much prefer this to sorting out simpler kits than just don't fit.

 

[blacbul67]

I have seen, elsewhere, many a discussion over what's the 'best brand' but such discussions are pointless.

Firstly there is a matter of what constitutes 'the best' making any such claims a matter of personal preference than any kind of absolute truth.

It can depend on what genre of modelling, what scale, what is your preference for display, whether you enjoy the challenge involved in fighting a kit into submission and so on. Also, of course, long standing brands will have older kits that are simply not up to the standards of what they now produce. Indeed some people will have been prejudiced against a company because they have built an old, flawed kit and have not bothered to try them again and see what their newer kits are like. I often see Airfix a 'victim' of that kind of thing.

So allowing for that let's see what your brand preferences are? With explanations of why and what 'floats your boat' and the criteria by which you judge them.

My judgement is based on the following.
1. 1/32 scale aircraft with WW2 subjecting taking preference.
2. I don't like fighting a kit and for me a challenge comes from obtaining a painted and weathered finish I feel proud of. So I want a well engineered good fitting kit.
3/ I also want accuracy without being obsessive about it.

Taking into account all this I rank my top three brands as follows:

3rd. Zoukei Mura. I love their ambition and the different approach to design and engineering. They certainly present a real challenge when it comes to a build offering amazing detail and overall decent fit. If you don't get each stage exactly right it will lead to problems later in the build. Not for novices.

2nd. Tamiya. They get a balance between buildability, detail and fit. You can go wrong with them and, like ZM, if so it is down to what you do. I remember the three 1/32 Tammy Spifires I built. Often people criticise the fit of the engine cowls but after two builds that demonstrated such a problem, my third build showed perfect fit, proving that I, not Tamiya, was the problem.

1st place. Kotare. Though I have built only one, with one more in the stash, these have replaced Tamiya in the number one slot because they give me all I want and need from a kit. Amazing detail and accuracy, superb research that their instructions can be held on to as a reference source for other builds. They have great fit, and brilliantly engineered. They also take this slot because they produce kits optimised for what I want out of a kit. In other words I am not spending time building up engines and internal structure that won't be seen, as someone who likes my aircraft with closed panels. They provide the most detailed cockpit interiors I have seen with a much lower part count overall. I consider the Spitfire 1 build to be my most enjoyable ever. I now have one built, one in the stash, and two on preorder and looking forward to preordering more new releases when available. These are the only company I place preorders for and one of two with whom I will buy without checking out reviews (Tamiya being the other)

Special mentions.
I do like a couple of other companies who stand out. iCM who produce some really interesting subjects in 1/32 and HKM who also produce some really interesting 1/32s as well. Neither have something special as my top three so.

Over to you.

I'm a returning modeller (after nigh on 40 years) who has spent the last 3 years (bloody hell) getting my gear together and while doing so found out what a Stash is (I never had one when I built models as a child and Teenager. Scalemates is my most used website now. I have developed a preference for aircraft (WW2 primarily) and though I buy more 1/48 scale (Eduard in particular have become my go to ) I do now feel my preferred scale to be 1/32 . I was already aware of Tamiya, I built a couple of their 1/35 kits back in the 70s and 80s. But Zoukei Mura was totally new to me. I totally missed the Wingnut Wings era (I was gobsmacked when after a year or so I finally made the connection between Wingnut Films (Peter Jackson) and Wingnut Wings (duhhh). But was now aware of Kotare and their connection.

I therefore have exactly the same Top 3 as you but cannot rank them really as I have yet to build any of the ones I currently have in my 1/32 Stash;
2 Tamiya, 2 Kotare and 3 Zoukei Mura (I also have a HGW Bf109 limited edition, an Eduard Bf 109 and the brand New Revell Gloster Meteor) I could easily buy at least the same again over in each particular brand but recognise that display space is an issue that needs to be considered unfortunately.

 

[BarleyBop]

I am a fledgling bird builder (as yet one in the works) but like my soft skin vehicle interest, to start, I will be selecting within 1/48 WW2 North Africa/Mediterranean theatre. So I'm more likely to chose first by subject, then, if there are options, Brand.