What about your brushes?.......................

Wayne

Sorry...dropped the mouse and screwed up what I was saying....other than please leave a valid message. O.K. Happy Holidays to all.............

Doesn't help with how history is taught in schools now either.

I grew up in the 80s-90s and got into plastic modelling thanks to a few local shops selling Airfix, Revell, and Tamiya stuff. Plus Beaties was still a thing too (miss that shop).

I've had chats with other fantasy painters who enter a lot competitions and when they've attempted historical they've been marked down for things like using saturated colours or basing style. Potentially quite discouraging when they're trying things out and wanting to paint good looking things.

I find fantasy painters often cross over the most with 1/1 painting approaches in terms of theory and the like..so I think there is something to be learned from them…

and yes, history is often left out these days in schools..unfortunate when context is more important than ever…knowing where we came from, how we got here from there helps understand the mess that is our world…it’s been bumped up to uni…I’ve found some excellent courses available to audit from Yale ..and am engrossed in one on emergence of modern Ukraine, and one on France from 1871..

It's your hobby, Paint what you want, and what makes you happy. You worry about some show that has bad lighting after spending so much time with highlighting to you own taste only to find out at that the judges have their own taste. Only to be discouraged and pissed off because you thought you should have gotten a first instead of an honorable mention. Slap some paint on anything and see where it goes and don't give two shits about what anyone else thinks.

Alfred E. Newman

Not being funny but if you're trying to draw painters to a show you can at least make sure, as an organiser, that attendees can see people's hard work properly. Showing your creations to others is a bigger part than an actual competition. Plus it helps judges to see what they're forming an opinion on better.

Hey, I bags his brushes! (He's not in his pyramid yet and already we're fighting over his stuff.)

Unless a figure reproduces a contemporary photo, or unless a bust is an actual portrait of a real person, all that we call historical modelling is really "historical fiction".

I wish I hadn't read this thread now. Here's me wanting to start out and already you are all saying the future is grim.

I do not know any epoch or historical era when the future did not look "grim" Bundook and yet here we are talking about it.No excuses then,start your envolvement to our brilliant hobby and let God decide the rest.

Oda.

I've been making models of all types for nearly 60 years and IMO the historical model making hobby is in a better place than it's ever been. The range of figures/AFVs/aircraft models available is vast, the quality of most of them is amazing and we are able to share our ideas and techniques through the internet. The advent of 3D printing opens up a whole new world of model making possibilities. And small boutique producers now have access to global markets through the internet.

People have been saying the hobby is dying for many years, yet it seems to go from strength to strength.......

Well, many photos are staged - the first fakes were during the Crimean War! And it's hard to interpret colours from b&w photos. Very few paintings and portraits are accurate, as the artist (and the subject) always had an agenda. So there's a lot of research required and for me that's part of the fun. But we also have access to a lot of original artefacts and original sources that are much easier to access than ever, again thanks to the internet. So I think we can get closer to a more accurate representation, if that's what you want to do. Or you can just paint a figure and have fun.

These are the glory days IMO

Indeed Nigel.Totally agree.Research is one of the most fun-giving parts of the hobby.Linking our research to other disciplines is even more fun.Recent historical research seriously doubts that Marius instigated any reforms at all.The Roman legions are starting to emerge as presenting a very different picture from what we think as accurate so far.In a recent editorial note in Medieval Warfare a team of researchers,after studying skeletal remains,seriously doubts the fact that Medieval Horses were anything bigger than large ponies by today's standards.All this new knowledge will take ages to permeate down to our hobby and will cause lot of controversies and disputes when it does....but that is also part of the fun.
These are the glory days indeed all the more so because there are so many knowledgeable people willing to engage in though exchanging discussions.
We may be the last of the Mohicans but we surely are the most glorious ones.

Oda.

In my view “the hobby” has always been worrying about a decline. It’s easily spotted by reading back old issues of modelling magazines. Looking back over the multiple decades I have been doing modelling, in various forms, I can only conclude it is getting better and better.
I don’t think there has ever been a bigger commercial offering, nor bigger and better shows. You could fill whole seasons just with visiting modelling events.
The range of materials, paints and tools offered makes you forget the past need to be creative, using household stuff, rather than “10th generation waffen ss middle dark brown”.
There seems to be a market for all this (unless one thinks the world is really led by a deep state manned by modellers that only serve their own interest, who knows?), so somewhere there are loads of people on the buying end. In other words, modellers are numerous.
Also the quality of modelling is becoming higher and higher.

Perhaps the focus shifts with time, Fantasy currently clearly being on the upside. They are still modellers however, sharing many techniques, interests and events with modellers focusing on historical.
Perhaps this is exactly the way to attract young blood. I am convinced that sometime after their twenties, quite a number of fantasy painters will start seeing their subjects as rather arbitrary, finding more meaning in historicals. Or only after 50 or 60. Or not at all. Whatever, some fraction will cross the boundary, and some already do both.

So in my view we should celebrate these times and only be gloomy about our own individual decline of eyesight, hand-steadiness, etc. and not worry about the decline of the hobby. Because it isn’t declining. It is changing, but thriving.

Adrian

It might be interesting to see the age range of Planet figure users. Are those stats available?

Yes, I was a bit miffed to find out that the famous "valley of death" photo with all the roundshot lying about is a fake. The photographer got people to hump more cannonballs over and dump them so he could "artfully" arrange them to get a good pic.

I don't know if the stats are available but I would imagine 40s/50s/60s is probably where most of us are. Like someone said earlier, a lot of the younger folks will be on Fbook and similar rather than forums like this. I have only started using Fbook recently and there are a LOT of model making groups on there.

Well... start out. No reason not to when there are honestly so many amazing sculpts on the market. Just go for what you like the look of and enjoy it.

Oh, I am. I'm fiddling about with some Airfix Multipose bits just now. Then I'll have to think about how to paint them, and what with.

I know where you're coming from, but at least they are painting, and may get drawn into painting a military piece.

Malc

Thinking back, I actually started the hobby painting fantasy pieces and then moved on to military, which is my main interest..... but dare I mention
that I do dabble in the occasional fantasy piece... after all there are so many great subjects to choose from.
Military and Fantasy.

Malc

In terms of sheer quality alone, it's never been better. Look at the very very high standards being produced now - and that's by the overwhelming majority of manufacturers, as opposed to say a Poste Militaire or a Pegaso being the benchmark as they genuinely were - for years. Nowadays, we're treated to quite a few makes who are all top notch.
We can all hark bark to a perceived Golden Age, but I'll tell you this, I've been looking recently at some copies of Mil Mod from the early 1990s. The only golden thing in them is the prices! Latorre 54mm figures were £9.95. Seriously... And we moaned then!

Yes, we do need some new blood - without a doubt. That aside, the hobby's in a good state.