MORE insidious Commie-Atheist brainwashing!1!

[onager]

(Also posted in the Lounge with a different Subject....so you aren't seeing double.)

OK, relax, I'm just going slightly off-topic and needed an excuse. Even though, technically, all the people shown in the picture below must have been Godless Atheist Commies. Since they are Rooshians in WWII.

As often ranted, my Weird Hobby is building scale models, often of military subjects. Now I ask you - is this the coolest scale model kit ever?

Yes, it comes complete with the clothesline and 1/35 SCALE LINGERIE! Also the samovar, table and record player. BTW, "1/35 scale" means each of the figures is about as tall as one of your longer fingers.

The scene depicted by the model is taken from a famous 1972 Russian movie, At Dawn It's Quiet Here. (The model manufacturer, ICM, is located in the Ukraine.)

The movie is about a crusty Sergeant-Major (the guy ranting on the boxtop) who commands an anti-aircraft unit near Leningrad in WWII.

He gets tired of dealing with drunks, womanizers, goof-offs and trouble-makers in his unit, and demands better replacements from higher headquarters.

"No drunk macho troublemakers? OK, no problem, Sarge!" Headquarters send him a group of young women fresh out of training, some still teen-agers. Later these young women tangle with an elite Nazi unit sent to blow up the Murmansk railroad.

On-topic for this, otherwise off: Turner Classic Movies recently showed the 1966 Russian movie Wings (Krylya), directed by Larisa Shepitko. About a highly decorated WWII female fighter pilot, trying to adjust to the mundane postwar life of a school principal. Definitely worth catching.

[MineralMan]

1. Very cool kits.

But 1:35? That's an unusual scale. I build scale multi-storefont street scenes in 1:24. I'd love to have some of the many figures from kits that manufacturer makes, but they're the wrong damned scale. All of my street scenes are set in 1939, and the costuming, etc., would be perfect, but, damn! Too small.

[onager]

2. Scale drives us all crazy...

I hear ya! I also build 1/24 scale stuff, and would love to have some of the 1/35 figures in the bigger scale.

Most 1/24 resin figures only marginally resemble human beings. Especially the faces are usually blobby and crude.

Just in case you don't know this, though you probably do - the German company PREISER makes gorgeous 1/24 figures. (They make figures in almost every scale, from HO all the way up to 1:22.5 for LGB train layouts.)

Every PREISER figure is based on an Actual Human Being. The A.H.B. goes to the PREISER studio and poses for photos and sketches.

This means their scale figures are almost as variable as real humans - slender, chubby, muscular, beautiful, not-so-beautiful etc.

I'd highly recommend the "Adam" and "Eve" Preiser sets. Those are "academy" nude figures with optional arms and other parts. You can use epoxy putty to make clothes for them. Since the clothes drape over the musculature underneath, they can come out looking very realistic.

ON-TOPIC! ON-TOPIC! I live in the Los Angeles area, and one day I went into a big model-train shop in Burbank. I asked the shop owner if he had any Preiser figures.

He said he was temporarily out, because he had just shipped a big order to the East Coast. A model builder had called from there, looking for Preisers.

The modeler had asked at his local hobby shop, and was told: "We don't sell those figures. They're nekkid! We're Xians and will not sell PORNOGRAPHIC NEKKID scale-model figures!!!" (Most Preiser figures aren't nekkid, just the Adam & Eve figs I mentioned, AFAIK.)

The only drawback to Preisers - the cost. I've picked some up cheap at scale-model swap meets, so you might try that.

Other manufacturers of 1/24 plastic figures, off the top of my head: TAMIYA and FUJIMI. Their figures seem to go in and out of production at random. There are usually some hanging around on eBay.

[MineralMan]

5. Thanks for all that info!

[kurtzapril4]

3. That's awesome!

My s/o has literally a couple of hundred of unbuilt model kits....it's a fun hobby. Keeps him busy and out of trouble!

[Curmudgeoness]

4. His hobby is collecting unbuilt model kits???

That reminds me of the comment in a recent atheism-is-religion post....where Awoke In 2003 said their religion was atheism and their hobby was not collecting stamps. I loved that comment!

[onager]

6. Ha! You 2 are reading my mind!

I bet K-A's S.O. is sort of like me - he really, really INTENDS to build all those damn things someday. But he keeps buying them. And buying them...

K-A, you might tell him I have a eBay sale up this week of scale models...nah, I'm not doing that to you. I don't have a Hobby Widow in the house myself, but I have a good deal of empathy for them.

At my average building rate, I would need a Biblical lifespan of about 999 years to finish all the "projects" I have.

Curmudgeoness: I was thinking of adding that exact comment! That my hobby is not-building scale models. Judging by the stacks of them in the garage...

Ah well. I tell people it's my Zen meditation. When I'm concentrating on building or painting something...and usually inventing new blasphemies in the process...real life just fades away. I'm right In That Moment and can't worry or think about anything else. Sometimes that's a great feeling.