Let’s be honest here. Who really looks at your models? Who comes into your display area and really digs into the details on any given build? I’m willing to bet no one does. The friends that I can coax into checking out my models usually just give them a look over. No one ever notices or asks if they represent specific subjects from specific times. The fact is they don’t care.
Contests, shows, club meetings and other events are a completely different crowd. These are people who share an appreciation for your craft and possibly even your subject. I’m sure you would agree that these are two totally different audiences. These people not only have interest in your subjects but there is a good chance you will run across someone who knows more about one or more of them than you do.
What does all this have to do with invisible detail? Nothing. No one, regardless of level of interest, will ever see invisible detail. By definition it is unseen, not visible. So what’s the point? Why do some of us include things unseen? Some do it for the practice it gives them thereby improving their skill set. Some do it because they insist on using every part possible in the kit. Some do it because they have that drive to detail every nook and cranny regardless of it ever being seen again.
I am not a methodical modeller. I do have some standard ways I do things but each model I build is done in a unique way. Each one includes detail and processes that I have never used before and may never use again. For me it keeps the hobby fresh. What drives me is the desire to try things I have never done before. To at least attempt things I never have. Besides, organization and methodology are for the workplace and have no business in my hobby room.
My Monogram B-29 build is a great example of my want to try new things and the inclusion of hidden detail. The build includes the use of the Eduard Big Ed PE set which includes every detail you can possibly imagine both inside and out. But this build isn’t about all that detail. It’s about the PE. My only experience with PE up until this project were the grenade screens on a Tamiya Sd.Kfz. 222 and some cockpit panels in a Dragon FW190. Only one piece of which required any need to bend or shape it. I got tired of seeing all the comments online by people about how they don’t have the skills to do PE. So, when I had the chance to get a review sample of a set for a kit I already had, I jumped right in. My intention is to show that even a PE newbie with a limited set of tools can not only do it but do it well. That’s my drive on this one, not the detail.
There are others in my collection like the Trumpeter FW200 with the fuselage full of unseen fuel tanks and countless others with painstakingly done instrument panels. That’s not really the norm anymore because I realized my goal is to get them done and on the display shelf not to get them perfect…
Besides, no one ever looks at them anyway.
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That’s what pictures are for. I can’t see the heavy detail inside the Monogram B-25 I built but I have lots of photos of the build I can enjoy later.
And they’re like pictures of my grandson. I keep them on my phone just in case I have an opportunity to show folks what i do in my spare time.
But your right, most people I show things like super details cockpits to just kind of stand and stare but I know they don’t get it. It doesn’t keep me from showing them anyway.
Excellent points and yes I have the same with friends looking at my work, my wife only gives them a glancing look and says “that looks nice” and then off to the cabinet it goes. I do enter one contest a year but again the judges can only judge what they can see. So for me it is a clean build, some detail and like you the more I build the better and happier I am.