The model that started me off on this.....

[PR19_Kit]

Waaaay back in the early 70s I was running IPMS Trent and I was also the IPMS Branch Liason Officer for my sins. Luckily I worked for BR at the time which enabled me to do lots of travelling around the country on IPMS business for free using my BR Staff Pass. 

I also got the odd review model to build via 'Scale Models Magazine' for which I wrote the odd article sometimes. One of these that came my way was the then new Matchbox F-104G Starfighter. After looking at it, putting some of it together, looking at it again I came to the conclusion that if you wanted an F-104 you wouldn't start from here, and wrote the review in that vein. SMM decided not to print such a scathing review and I ended up with a pseudo-F-104.

Being of an imaginative turn of mind (no, really???) I brain-stormed it into an RAF Starfighter and promptly set to and converted it to a 92 Sqdn. F-104K Starfighter F3, complete with Red Tops on the wingtips, an ECM fin blister, a fixed refuelling probe (ex-Lightning F6) and a dorsal avionics pod (from half a Lightning over-wing tank). The 'history' of this may form an entry in the Alternative History section at some time.

The rest of the guys at IPMS Trent thought I'd gone bananas of course, but on one of my trips south I attended the Farnborough Branch's annual Plastikfest held on the Saturday night of the F'boro SBAC Display and there ran into a kindred spirit in Mike McEvoy. He too had a 'spoof' model with him at the event and we both hit it off immediately.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The model still exists and formed part of the What If SIG's 'RAF 100' display at Telford this year, and this at an age of 35+!

[The Rat]

The rest of the guys at IPMS Trent thought I'd gone bananas of course, ...

BAH, screw 'em if they can't take a joke, and good on Mike M for encouraging you! 

[Sauragnmon]

They're the ones who are crazy for not thinking of ways to make a bad kit something cool!

Great build!  My first kit on return to Scale Building was a Whif, the KMS Gneiseau you can see in my own thread.  I'd built a few Scale models before that, but I went into playing 40K and all my build and paint skills were put there.  Then Sequoiaranger's section over at combinedfleet.com was a start of inspiration.  I'm also a roleplayer, and when I saw his stuff, I thought it would make a great start, originally, for some warships in a large-scale strategy RP.  Well, a few months later, I wound up back at his stuff, but this time I was having a little more of an... analytical look, disassembling his Chichibu and figuring it out.  Then, at that point, I was damned.  Horribly, utterly, ineffably damned.  I disassembled his idea of the Gneiseau with 15" guns, and immediately had to build it myself.  So what did I do?  I bought Gneiseau, I bought Tirpitz, I took my whifbashing hammer, and the rest, we can see.

[sotoolslinger]

I like it I think crappy kits get more folk into whiffing than trying to make real planes better

[sequoiaranger]

>I disassembled his [Sequoiaranger's] idea of the Gneiseau with 15" guns, and immediately had to build it myself.  So what did I do?  I bought Gneiseau, I bought Tirpitz, I took my whifbashing hammer, and the rest, we can see.<

I can't take credit for the 15" Gneisenau. The Germans wanted to do that, and after the ship got bombed and disabled they actually THOUGHT of re-building it with twin 15" guns in place of the triple 11" guns.  The priority for the conversion was so low it never even begun happening.

"My" KM Hindenburg...

http://www.combinedfleet.com/furashita/hinden_f.htm

...was a real German plan also, but an atrociously poorly-armored beast in its design (Furashita gave it a mild re-design to keep it up with the Scharnhorsts for the game).

I, too, made a model of the Hindenburg (1/2000) but don't have a picture of it....yet.

[Sauragnmon]

I know the Gneiseau was PLANNED for the 15" and they had decided to when she got bombed, refit her with an extended bow for drier decks and the 15" guns in 1940.

Your Chichibu however was where I really got started.  Disassembling that in my head was the start, but Gneiseau was a simpler conversion and thus came faster to hand.