What Inspired You to Whiff?

[Howard of Effingham]

istr, it was nev who told me about this site, when i was over on arc asking q's several years back about
the hawker P1121. but i am sure my one of my earliest whiff's was from the late 1990s, a jaguar GR1 but with
F404's in desert pink. its still in the stash somewhere.

[beowulf]

hmmm.........got back into modelling a few years back after 30+ years off.............mainly built 1/24 cars and 1/12 bikes.....im a member of a community forum somewhere and did a thread building cars and bikes which reflected members persona.........came up with all sorts of things like customised pie delivery vans, police car/dragsters and Redneck monster trucks in General Lee schemes.........the project took over a year and produced about 30 different things..........when it was over i decided to have a go at modelling planes which are a love of mine but to be honest i find them a lot harder than cars, just wasnt satisfied with the quality of work i was producung....i was still having lots of fun but they just didnt look how i wanted them.......then a modelling forum im a member of had a 'Pink Group Build'..........i had an old Heller P40E kit that had no decals that i turned into a pink Reno racer and enjoyed doing it.....ive always been fascinated by Luft '46 stuff and started doing a few of them..........i then stumbled upon a site which discussed 'what if' world history...interesting reading......i think there was a sub forum on there about 'what if models' they had found........that led me to google 'what if'...........which ended up here  .....it spured me on to have another go at aircraft.....now i cant look at a plane or helo model without thinking 'that would look cool in such n such camo'

the thing i like about this place is its laid back approach........quality dosnt really matter...........imaginative and interesting work does...long may it remain so, this place is a breath of fresh air amongst the zillions of similar modelling sites out there

[Brian da Basher]

I'm in the 30 year-plus range of the whiffing spectrum. I started when I was 10 by taking a P-38 and making two aircraft from it using the tail booms as fuselages and adding a pair of spare wings to the second boom. One had floats. Next, I did a P-40 in an Italian desert scheme.

When my second modelling phase began, it started innocently enough by taking a B-29 and grafting on the wings and tail from a C-97 to make a B-50. After that, I started using different parts to make aircraft that either weren't available (a 1/144 Lockheed Vega) or unaffordable (a DH-4 became a Curtiss Jenny). It all went downhill from there.

Brian da Basher

[TsrJoe]

got into 'kid on' models and schemes from my late father, his own collection included an S.6 Canadian ski plane, flying car based on a Cessna 02 and Land Rover, as well as a few 'bits n pieces' aircraft and locomotives (his double ended Blue Pullman' and 'Mogul' Garrett being my favourites) most completed before i was even born, so probably one of the first 'what iff'ers id guess (the model railway side of the hobby did always cover might have beens tho long before scale plastic modelling really took off!)

my own early dabblings when i was in primary school included a Bristol Superfreighter, Shorts Skyvan, P.1127's, a few Gnats (delta wings courtesy of dads styrene stash!) and a Islander all painted green and brown camouflage with light blue sky unders as my 'ideal air force', had those hanging up for years!

later there was the famous Revell 'design a fighter' competition (i got one of the runner up prizes even tho my entry was mostly Airfix bits!)

a few years passed where i took the hobby more seriously, joining IPMS. as a junior member in 1977, altho i did dabble in scifi/fantasy subjects as well as my usual aircraft/afv. fare

Ian Hartup convinced me to join the 'what-if sig' when he was leader as my interests cover mainly research and cancelled aircraft types, from which Rob Sullivan talked me into forming our own R&D sig which has blossomed in recent years through the joint coordinatorship with Geoff Baker and the recent influx of excellent modellers to the group

happy modelling, cheers, joe

[PR19_Kit]

Matchbox........

Doing a review kit of their F-104, and having decided that if you wanted to make an F-104 you wouldn't start from there, I 'upgraded' it to an RAF Starfighter F3. I still have it too, see below. Quite what mental process started me on that I have no idea, but it seemed a good idea at the time. Soon afterward I met Mike McEvoy in person, compared more than a few mental notes and that was the start of it all for me I guess.

All that was in 1972 when I was already 30 years old and had been modelling for over 20 years!

[mikko]

I Do Finland Air Force What If models=Finland AF `46. 

[philp]

Some great stories so far.  Interesting to see where we started and how long some of you have been doing this.

Thinking back, got to admit that most of my builds throughout the years could qualify as whiffs, at least in the colors I painted the planes and tanks, when I actually painted them. 

Had a buddy in Massachusetts who lived in the same building as me (base housing) who also did models.  One time we had some left over parts from an old Pyro sailing ship (hull) and Revell B-25 (1/48).  We took the stab and put it across the hull, added one of the tails inside the back, put the cockpit on top of the stab and the nose .50 fit right between the pilots seats (facing backwards ).  The bombs in the plane built 2 at a time so half went on one side of the hull and the other half you know were.  So, a seaplane was born.  Didn't even realize I was whiffing.

One other early one back in the early to mid 70s was what I considered a conversion but actually was a whiff.  I had read a book about the SAS and LRDG and had fallen in love with their heavily armed jeeps and trucks.  Had the Airfix Matador kit but how to arm it?  Turns out the twin .50s from the Revell USS Defiance look about Lewis sized in 72nd scale so cut a couple round magazines from cardboard and an old landing gear leg became the stand and planted them in the middle of the back of the truck.  Painted in Desert splinter (most of my armor was in a desert scheme of some type back then as were quite a few of my aircraft) and off on Long Range patrols it went.

Hmmm... maybe I need to find another kit and try and add a few more weapons to it.

[lancer]

What got me started was my interest in the ~Luft '46 site and the stuff on there, and the link to our site. I looked at the site and that was it, I was hooked. It was a bit of a srtuggleto come up with ideas then, but that soon passed.

[ChernayaAkula]

<...> It was a bit of a srtuggleto come up with ideas then, but that soon passed.

Exactly. Now it's the other way round: how to make the ideas stop? 

[Sisko]

Always been a Sci-Fi modeller.

In the late nineties when I got my first lap top and internet connection I discovered Luft 46 via a host of sites including one by a guy in Sydney. Coupled with Revell and special hobby releasing luft 46 kits the work was done. I quickly then became obsessed with alternative history's other than just WWII.

Signed up to this site in the very early days and the rest is, as they say, alternate history.

[proditor]

Way back in the day, I was eight years old, and I had a model of the Battlestar Galactica, and a model of the USS Missouri.  Let me just say that the Galactica had some ROCKIN' Gun turrets by the time I was done.  

Sci-Fi got me in to whiffing in general, but ships got me into "mainstream" whiffing, where I wouldn't just explain a kitbash as being for Warhammer 40k or some other Sci-Fi outlet.  Modding up a modernized Arizona while bored one summer sparked a bug that was fed by some of the conjectural ships in the old Harpoon wargame.  This led to military "men's adventure" novels, and the next thing you know, I was trying to figure out how to put 6 M-61a-1's in an F-16.  Yes, I had discovered the wildly over the top "Wingman" series.  I knew it was silly, goofy, unrealistic, and more than a bit juvenile, but it was also milspec pron.  

That led to looking into unique or different paintjobs, and the rest was a steady and quiet time bashing kits until I found this place and suddenly felt normal.  So thanks for that guys, nice not to be the only one in the jacket with the nice wrap around sleeves that tie in the back.  

[Taiidantomcat]

I would have to echo what everyone else has said. Being a Star Wars fan I love sci-fi stuff and moreover, reality was boring compared to imagination. discovery of Luft-46, And games like Return to Castle Wolfenstien and movies like Indiana Jones. I was reading a book called Crusade by Rick Atkinson and he gave a brief description of the history of armored warfare and a certain line struck me about the Abrams: "The Americans Possessed a tank that Rommel and Guiderian could only dream of..." Bingo!! Idea is born

Somewhere along the way i stumbled onto the "old site" for what if and it was a dream come true! I also found Leigh's site and there was no turning back. What if is greatest site on the web. 

Early on like BdB mentioned economics played a part. I spend A LOT more on models than I used to, but still sometimes Whif due to the fact that German tanks seem to run about 50 bucks, but an Italeri Leopard2A6 (=sleek) can be found for about half that... And looks pretty darn cool. I surpassed that point a long time ago where What-if plans for models far outweigh "real" build plans.

[Shasper]

For me it would've had to have started after the first time I read Flight of the Old Dog, but what really fired my imagination was an article on what-ifs that was featured in an early 2000s issue of FSM's Great Scale Modelling, then I ran across the What if site on kithobbyist.com, got to reading the forum & now I blame you guys for my warped modelling imagination lol

[nev]

istr, it was nev who told me about this site, when i was over on arc asking q's several years back about
the hawker P1121.

Guilty as charged m'lud.

Me?  I had been back into modelling for a few years and was reading a WAPJ article about the F-15, and how McDD tried a couple of times to sell them to the RAF.  I had an F-15D in the stash,  and the seed of an idea was born.

Almost immediately afterwards, I found the old, old (old?) website - the kitmaker one - via a post on the old rec.models.scale, who just happened to be running the "Britorama" group build, built the F-15K,  and have been hooked ever since. 

The forum in those days was MUCH smaller, old timers like Meece, Ollie and Joeisamonkey are no longer here.  Guys who I do seem to remember from my first days include Toad (Captain Canada to you young 'uns), JeffryFontaine, Supertom, JoeP and the late lamented Wooksta.

I don't remember the first show I met up with the gang, but I'm glad I did and its been a real priviledge to have the likes of Thorvic, NARSES & IHG as friends.

[elmayerle]

Well, for me I suppose it was AU sf (thank you H. Beam Piper and Andre Norton for starting that interest) adn then Luft 46 intrigued me and I got here from there.  I did some interesting work-ups for some of Richard Lewis Mendes' art and he got me intothe Luft46 group and sometime later I found out about this site.  Meanwhile, I'd become acquainted with Roger, The Cabin Boy, from the Harrier SIG and he'd primed me with some old newsletters from this group as well as the two "What-If" newsletters they put out.  I'll admit to contributing later with a TAV-8B+ in the then Boeing house demonstrator colors (I still plan to mdoel that beastie in both 1/49 and 1/72).  Finally, a link to here was put up on the Luft46 (GPL) yahoo group and I found folk as offbeat as I am.