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Two Models: Recovering My Perspective

By Scott H. Kruize

When Will Perry was passing out Champlin Fighter Collection project assignments, he seemed quite serene about giving me the Fokker D-VII.  This, despite the fact that I'd built only a handful of models since getting back into plastic modeling a few months previously, and only one was WWI.  The Testors' re-issue of the old Hawk model I'd once built back in my Calvin-esque 1960s wasn't a contest winner by any stretch.

But Will said that the kit would be so good, I'd just have to build it "out of the box".  At the time, I didn't appreciate how difficult the Champlin project would be for others:  using sheet styrene and lots of epoxy putty to splice aftermarket cast-resin sections into parts of two or three injection-molded kits, to try to represent the kludgey conglomerates of the real Collection.

At least "my" D-VII, though a replica made in the 60s, was built fairly faithfully to the original.  Will said I wouldn't need to worry about modifying the kit; just assemble it according to the "Guidelines", and duplicate the color scheme.  Quite straightforward; even easy.  "I've seen your work", he said, "and I'm confident you can do a good job."

Well...

This is the same fellow who said to the Museum representatives, "We will exceed your expectations."  There's a high standard: the finished kits would be displayed together, at times next to the full-size prototypes, for very large crowds, indefinitely into the future.  The quality of my work may be rising as I hang around with the local modelers, but my standards are rising even faster, and it’s all too clear how far I have to go.  Besides, not only have I never built anything of contest caliber, I've never built anything for other than my own amusement.

One other consideration: it was explained to me that the kit, by DML/Dragon, was very elegant and out of production.  I can interpret those terms as well as anybody: it’s scarce and expensive; better not blow it!  The kit, when I got it, was finer than anything I'd ever bought, and not just in the quality of the plastic moldings.  It also contained things I'd never even seen before: parts made of photoetched stainless steel.  Perhaps you will now understand that I was a little intimidated, worried, even depressed by the whole thing.

I cheered slightly after reading the kit instructions and a review that Will included, from a 1998 issue of Scale Models International.  Apparently, kit construction wasn't going to be that hard.   I cheered up further when I finally got my hands on two other aids to the project.  One was a set of snapshots of the original, showing the cockpit, engine, guns, landing gear, and some of the strutwork and rigging.  The other was the SMER kit, acquired on eBay.  The kit is wretched beyond belief, as awful as the DML kit is great.  But the SMER kit had two things I really needed: a full-color 3-view of the scheme I was trying to reproduce, and a set of decals!  I had especially wondered how I was going to duplicate the fuselage side emblem, a winged sword.  Now, at least, I had the means at hand to simulate the appearance of the real thing.

Nevertheless, I was still in a somewhat negative frame of mind when, at Skyway Hobbies, I found myself examining other Fokker D-VII kits.  Something great about browsing at Emil's: many boxes are opened.  I got to compare an old Aurora kit with a more recent Monogram, and sure enough, just as I'd heard, they were shot from the same molds.  The Monogram had been cleaned up a little, with good decals and clearly drawn instructions.  The big difference was that all the ghastly engravings for decal locations were gone.

Question on the side: who in the world decided, way back when, that plastic models needed to have their markings carved into them all over?  The factory owners must have found it very expensive and difficult to do.  Then their decal sizes and shapes scarcely ever turned out to match the engraving.  I remember this from my childhood, quite distinctly.  Of course, I realize that back then, the market was small boys like me.  It couldn’t have occurred to the manufacturers that one day, aging adults like us would be the only ones building their kits.  But even at that, who decided that little kids, however ignorant, ham-handed, and impatient, couldn't place decals as shown on diagrams and box art?  And how is it that, once one of them did it, all the others had to follow suit?

Oh, well.  My thoughts returned to Emil’s and the kits in front of me… good job, Monogram, and good riddance to that engraving…  Contemplating this, the light bulb finally went off over my head:  the DML kit may intimidate me, but the old Aurora kit certainly doesn’t.  I built a bunch of the WWI Aurora "Famous Fighters" back then; I can certainly build this one now.  It’ll be great practice!

Transformed, and now eager to start production, I gave Emil eight bucks and hurried home.  The project now seemed easy and inviting.  Like Calvin, I used to spend a maximum of one afternoon building a model; this took longer.  But not much longer; a jillion hours or a fortune weren’t needed, making an award-winning museum piece; I just wanted to give a visual impression of the Champlin fighter that was good enough.

Still, I took time to fill the seams, mask the paint lines properly, drill out the exhaust, and otherwise do what I was too impatient to do as a kid.  I also ‘stretched’ a bit.  (According to Stephan Tontoni, modelers should ‘stretch’ with each new model:  trying a new technique or material, honing some newly-sought skill.)  I built a cockpit floor, used stretched sprue to substitute for some kit struts, and aligned everything over graph paper as the “Guidelines” suggested.  I devised a simple way, not too time-consuming, to simulate the lower-surface ‘lozenge’ fabric with airbrush and homemade mask.  To save that precious decal set, I made a reasonable facsimile of the fuselage winged-sword emblem with a cardboard template and Tamiya masking tape.  It all worked out fine, and when I sprayed on an overcoat of clear gloss, results actually began to resemble those snapshots of the real thing!

So I brought the completed model to the December meeting of the Northwest Scale Modelers, and put it on the display table in front of everybody without telling them what it was.  They knew I had this assignment, and I steeled myself for cries of dismay and demands that the project be given to someone who could make good models.

But everyone who gathered around seemed pleased with it, and I even heard remarks like, “Hey, that came out looking pretty good!”  I was gratified.

The day after I finished the Monogram model, I opened up the DML box again and looked the contents over afresh.  Know what?  --It didn’t look so tough any more!

I’m glad I did the “dress rehearsal” model; I wish I’d thought of it sooner.  Now I’m well into the DML kit, and scarce-and-expensive though it may still be, it’s coming along fine.  In some ways, in fact, it’s easier than the Monogram kit.  The seams fit better; the metal interplane and landing gear struts are sturdier; cockpit details don’t need creation from scratch.  I brought my progress so far to the January IPMS Seattle Chapter club meeting without worrying that it would draw harsh criticism.  I’ve still got ‘fiddly-bits’ to add, and some paint and decal work to do.  But the main thing is my attitude, all changed now.  The machine guns must still be assembled from a number of plastic and photoetched metal parts, but now it doesn’t seem like a forbidding task so much as an elegant sculpture that I can do.

You know what else?  I’m aware this plane won’t win a contest, any more than anything else I’ve made; certainly not against high-caliber work some of the other local modelers turn out.  But I firmly believe that when it takes its place with the rest of the models, and is seen by the museum representatives and their guests, it will exceed their expectations!