Learning vs. Winning
Another great video from Lyla Mev
It fits in with something that I was thinking about– the difference between painting “minis” and painting plastic model kits.
The plastic kits have an in-born measurement stick. It’s stuck right up the butt of every plastic scale model kit. It’s the idea of a “true miniature” of the “real thing.” This is perverted into competitive force. You can’t “just make” a scale model kit. It contains this tiny little bastard who’s always shouting “YOU THINK THAT LOOKS RIGHT, AIRMAN?!?”
Really, the in-born facts of scale model building were never such a big deal until the internet came and took it all into the realm of the super-critical jerk. You could be quite happy with what you did, but somebody has to nit-pick your work on a forum and then you feel bad when you should feel good. The damnable thing about it is that the hobby carries this inside it, like a dangerous disease.
If you let this poison into your bloodstream, you may not “survive” as a model builder.
So why is this nastiness in there at all? It because we, as a species, are just too lazy to stop and think and resist the urge to be critical.
But but but!!
How can I say something about a build if I’m not risking being critical? How can I “just comment” without it carrying a critical charge?
Glad you asked, eager young acolyte!
You should take on the role of helper. You can comment in truly constructive ways, but you have to have enough brains to be able to see the difference between “the landing gear is backwards” and “It looks great!”
Go ahead.
Learn it.
Who the hell made you God?
Also, you can just IGNORE simple, basic errors. These things come up. Try to think of the meta-error and address THAT. For example, maybe the poor fellow put the left landing gear on the right and the right landing gear on the left because…
Who cares?
Nobody would put them on backwards just for fun– but if they did, so what? Find the root cause. Was it really a lack of care?
So what?
You can’t fix that. Pointing it out proves nothing except that you’re a jerk.
So what’s the solution? After you send a PM and tell them it’s wrong, you can just make a suggestion that the instructions CAN BE WRONG and say that it’s a good idea to verify what they say.
Other than that, what’s the point of playing the “I saw what you did” game?
Why do it?
“Are you going to do something about the nose gear?” is obnoxious. “The kit nose gear is so short it needs to be lengthened to keep the model level” is good IF you provide that information WHEN SOMETHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT.
If you say nothing, and just let forever be, then you will have learned tact, and you’ll will have something that is growing more and more rare:
Class.