Tales from the Man Cave... a creative angle with the whole Mad Max futuristic car thing, and clearly very talented, creative, skilled building; honestly though I was not very interested in this type of thing and I suspect if polled many readers would not consider this type of article/choice a priority of things to know or learn about. Sorry if I seem harsh here, but when I pick this thing up...the magazine I mean, I'm looking for aircraft, armor, etc and the like... and I'm sure many of your readers will look for that too.
I agree, perhaps variety can come in different forms and hat off to you guys for going for it and putting something into the magazine that is in fact far from what you'd normally expect.
Hi Doug, first off welcome to SMA and I'm sure you'll love it here. Second thanks for picking up the mag and I'd like to reply to some of your thoughts on the mag. This won't be a lengthy reply though because a) I'm on an iPad which I find difficult to write fast on lol and b) I don't have the time!
You mention in the quote above that if polled not many readers would be interested in the article. Well I think that's wrong, I find something 'a little out of the ordinary' is a great thing to have in a mag (I can assure you that you won't find an apocalyptic zombie hunting gyro copter in any other mag) and the scratch building torch just shows the talent Scott has.
dougsmodels said:
The tankette was great. Love the pictures of the model before paint and the idea of the link to the video content. That's quite original and will be very helpful to continue the experience. The writing of the article was clear in terms of telling the reader what was going on, but not very well written in terms of holding interest. Creative writing helps to keep the reader's attention.
Mmmmm don't see anything wrong with the creative writing here, I actually laughed at the caption 'not that it would be a safe thing to do; drive around in a flame thrower with spilled fuel merely feet from an exposed flame...'
dougsmodels said:
Another great display of talent in rusty dumpsters but honestly guys two articles in a row about rusting it up and no offense to the builder who modeled the best dam looking dumpster that you'll ever see in a layout, but the subject of a dumpster is simply boring. Sorry.
I couldn't care if this was a dumpster or a wheel barrow that fact is I learnt A LOT from this article, I found the methods Iain used were great and intersecting.
dougsmodels said:
Undaunting was one of the better articles of the magazine both in terms of illustrating the build especially with photos and in terms of writing. A photo or two of the cockpit at the beginning did not really do justice to the work. I know that they're so hard to get especially of the dark coloring.
I thought the four photos of the cockpit looked fine?
dougsmodels said:
Guys from the Ground up. Very cool idea on using the foam to start up the base project, but the finished product from a magazine with this much quality stuff was...boring. You guys are kick ass with ground work and aftermarket supplies. This finished base did not look like a real show stopper and I'm sure the modeler is a real expert so that was unfortunate. It missed the mark although this column has some real potential and I"m very excited to see what's coming down the pipe.
This was one the most helpfull articles for me. I've actually used this technique shown here and it it has given me great results. "the finished base did not look like a real show stopper..." well if you read the last paragraph it explains that there will be another installment to the base, so it isn't finished at all.
dougsmodels said:
I will divert to the expertise of the sci fi guys for the sci fi article although I'm sure they'll be happy with it. I saw this model up close at a show in Connecticut and it is as good or better then it appears in the article. Very cool but I'm not too sure a ton of guys care too much about this kind of stuff. I know there will be plenty of those who will disagree and the techniques learned here were taken to heart so in all it was a success.
Finally, the war room was another column that I felt missed the mark when it came to holding my attention. I think again the quality of modeling is excellent but the idea of going off and focusing a whole column on wargaming stuff...well I'm not convinced. I understand that this is a big up and coming and already landed new area of modeling lately...just not dare I say as popular with everyone who builds...me included.
I think you'll find a lot of SMA'ers are Sci Fi nuts lol.
The War Room....well that's my column and thanks for the 'the quality of modelling is excellent...' I appreciate that. You are correct in saying that there is a new area of modelling for this scale and type, just look at AK Interactives Facebook page and see the amount of brail scale models they chuck up there on pretty much a daily basis.
dougsmodels said:
I would like to see the focus of the magazine more in the area of armor and aircraft. In fact the aircraft end was very poorly represented and other areas such as futuristic and sci fi were given too much print in my opinion. I know it's terribly hard and important to judge the potential audience for a magazine, but if the goal of the magazine is to keep selling, then what the reader wants to read about has to be the priority. I believe the majority of modelers out there and the majority of models built out there...at contests, etc are from the WWII era and include armor and aircraft from the period.
There was a full six page article on a plane? And seventeen pages dedicated to tanks? I believe the majority of modelers out there want to read interesting articles about a broad scale of models. There are sooooooooo many magazines dedicated to armour and aircraft.
With all that said though I can only speak for myself and not Ken, Scott or any of the other great authors. Cheers Doug for taking the time out to post your thoughts.
JS
