Of anxiety nd modelling

[diegoepoimaria]

So ...

I've got a way too large number of unbuilt models, and for each of them, I've had an axiety attack.
Because, for every model, I had to come up with a reasonable explanation, a realistic loadout, nationality, mission , modification, and include everything that is supposed to be there ( ecm pod, RWR antennas, chaff and flares buckets if not there already, arresting hook and so on ... ).

That's somehtign weird, I know, as the What If should be more free that the normal modelling world , but ... well ...
So, I wanted to know if it's something that you too encounter ...

Before you ask... yes, I DO see a therapist


Let's make an example:
I'm working on a couple ( ok, ok, 4 ) of harriers in 1/144, the old Crown models ( yeeeeeeeeah, the nose is quite wrong , so what if is the way to go ).

For example, I had done one in USMC livery ...
In the end it become a small harrier with 2 Sidewinders ( L already , I think ... don't remember the model ) , 2 external tanks and 2 1000lbs bombs mounted ventrally, that took up the space of the gunpods.
I've done a small modification to the nose, that now looks like the nose of an A-4M , with the ARBS bombing system.
And small lerx, like the AV-8B
So the idea is that USMC wanted a harrier like the AV-8B, but before it was in service , and so this version is born.
Like a strike oriented harrier, that can be used to strike valuable targets ( so, not for direct ground troop support ) but starting from USMC carriers ...

Sidewinders ... Because I like them , but probably somehting else should have been mounted there.
Sidearm maybe ? Probably, but there aren't good Sidearm photos and Sidearm looks more an offensive weapon for active Sead ...

So, this is all the overthinking on a 1/144 harrier ... yeah.



Now take another one ( 1/144 ) :
I've got this small harrier, gunpods have to be procured somewher else, cause Crown did not includes them.
Ok, I've got 2 sidewinder launcher, from a sea harrier ( that is SO bad , i can not use, for the life of me ).
Great, and I really really want to use the israeli Python 3 , with their weird big wings.

So, I could do another strike harrier , but the nose might not come out good ... cause I am not a good enough modeler ... and maybe the IAF would not use it ... why would them?
They had mirages at the time, and focused on high altitude, high speed operations ( or so I've read somewhere, so now I' think it's the thruth in my anxiety limited head ).
And the F-15 came in like ... 1980s ? And phantoms before that ?
So, why should dthey have used it ?

So, the story was I come up with was : being they afraid that the runways might become unusable, some harriers seemed a good idea.
So, options now include:

- A strike harrier, with 2 external tanks, 2 Python 3 and somehting ventral ... bombs ... maybe new nose, but the era should be like 1975 ... so no lerx.
- An Air defence harrier ,  external tanks, 2 Python 3 and a single small gunpod in the belly, instead of 2 big gunpods ... because weight issues ... hot conditions , reduced engine trust ... of course, a rolling landing might have helped ...
Maybe even a small radar in the nose. Something to be used in remote locations, to protect those. In this scenario, the 2 IR missiles aren't that mutch of an issue, also because in 1975 radar guided missiles aren't all that great ...
- A "this is not a nuclear device" harrier , with a nuclear bomb on the belly ...

And so on ...
So, my brain is always trying to come up with a reasonable explaination on why the harrier is there, with that loadout ... and the loadout have to be realistic, have to exist in the 1/144 world and I ahve to like it ... and sometime this venn diagram is empty...




So, all these rambling words to say: How did you do with your models ?
How did you live with somehtign that is not real ?  How "Realistic" you made it ? What story do you build around it ?


Yeah, sorry

[The Wooksta!]

Easy.  I don't care what others think or say.  As long as they are relatively believable or the differences can be defended or have precedence in the real world, then that's all that matters. My fecking model!

I'd suggest reading through my blogs to see how I deal with it (but not the Mosquito one, as that dealt with actuality and was more of a research thread), with other blogs from others to see how they deal with it.

[Rheged]

This is where Kit's second rule (also known in some circles as Rheged's hypothesis) comes to your aid.  Don't overthink things. It sounds to me as though you have several quite fascinating Harrier options.  Realism is all very well, but the artfully constructed backstory  will sort out any number of worries.

You are a citizen of  Whiffworld, where the constructional qualities of "Handwavium" and "Unobtainium" are regularly used, where anachronisms can be evaded as "unpublicised development" and looking interesting is  acclaimed by fellow whiffers .    Trials airframes carrying unexpected ordnance,  the use of Raspberry ripple livery and captured or loan aircraft  are all  perfectly acceptable "get out of gaol free" cards.

The only two rules you need to consider are 1) have  fun and 2)  never ever  enquire about RULE 6


I have no doubt that fellow whiffers will add their own reassurance and support.................it's one of the things we do rather well here

[kerick]

The best rule of life of life in general, KISS, keep it surely simple. If you want a Harrier with radar and missiles in Israeli markings, do it! (Sounds like an interesting idea!) Instead of going Navy style with Skyhawks they went USMC style with Harriers. That's all the explanation I need.
BTW, there's nothing wrong with using up the bits and pieces in the spare parts box. I'm not one for buying a kit or aftermarket set just for a couple of missiles or bombs if I can help it. That's just me, I'm a bit frugal that way.
Folks here are from one end of the realism spectrum to the other. I've built the junkyard dog from spare parts and it's at least plausible to the Yellow Submarine which is my take on the Beatles album. It's your model, build it whichever way you want to and we'll support you on it.

[DogfighterZen]

I may be wrong but, it seems like you're pressuring yourself with what others will think of your models but also, it seems that, like me, you want them to make sense and keep a certain degree of plausibility and you're not happy until it makes sense according to what could be possible in the real world. Just remember that you don't have to justify anything to anyone regarding what you do with YOUR models and the only justification you need is that you want it that way... even if the Backstreet boys never wanna hear you say it... 

Cheesy jokes aside, most of my builds are probably on the more realistic side of whiffing and i admit that's what i prefer but that's just my own preference.
I do tend to spend more time than i'd like researching and trying to decide what would make sense or not but in the end i just go with what i prefer to see on the model, realistic or not.
If it's too much of a stretch for anything plausible, i may write a backstory to create a scenario for my model or i may just ignore that and enjoy what i've built because that's how i wanted it.
Maybe it would help if you just choose to separate and commit the builds to either be a plausible whiff or a full on fictional one. There's always another model to build another version.
The original F-16 design with twin tails didn't make it past wind tunnel tests and for some reason they couldn't make it work like that but i wanted to have a twin tail Viper like i imagined so i built it... and another 2 after that, and i have more in the "to do" list.
Another example, the Portuguese Air Force wanted to buy some Fiat G.91Y back in the 1970s but they never did and the jet never had a radar or a long nose but i'd already seen one of our colleague Dizzyfugu's builds with a different radar nose and i liked it so, although at first, i wanted to keep it more on the plausible side of whiffing by just making it a Portuguese AF G.91Y whiff, i ended up going with what i preferred to see and also gave mine a radar nose and a pair of AIM-7 Sparrow missiles.
Hope you manage to relax a bit and just enjoy whiffing for what it really is, and it's called freedom, my friend.

 

[Spey_Phantom]

thats simple, i just do them for fun, first build the model, the backstory will pretty much come by ittself when your done.
there's no need to overthink or stress out over your project, take if from someone with an anxiety disorder 

[kerick]

Whiffing is where I can forget my issues for a while.
Build whatever you like my friend. We'll be here to help you along.

[Weaver]

Okay, so there's a few components to this.

To start with, you don't have to stick to one frame of reference, standard, or set of values. Shifting between these seems to be a mental skill that I have, and I appreciate that it doesn't come easily to everybody, but it's a skill worth cultivating. It's perfectly okay to have one build which is rigorously credible, with hours of research done on the compatibility of weapons and systems to make sure you can defend it's technical plausibility to an aircraft engineer. It's also perfectly okay to then go on to build an anti-gravity steampunk Martian flying battleship. One of these isn't any better than the other: they're just built and judged by different frames of reference, standards and values. The more you do this, the more you shift reference frames, the easier it becomes.


Whiffjitsu.

Douglas Adams (author of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy) told the tale of how he's once written his characters into a situation which he couldn't get them out of due to the sheer improbability of any solution. He then found himself watching a TV documentary about Jujitsu. The instructor explained that if you have a problem, such a 19 stone guy in pyjamas charging towards you, then the the trick is to rearrange matters so that it isn't a problem any more. Specifically, if you can rearrange matters so that said guy is now three feet off the floor and upside-down, then the fact that he weights 19 stone is now his problem rather than yours. Adams applied this to his situation by inventing the Infinite Improbability Drive, a spacecraft drive which caused very improbable things to happen by it's very nature, which thus resulted in his characters being rescued. The bizarre effects of this drive then went on to inspire many plot points in the series. By turning the situation on it's head, he'd made the improbability of a solution a benefit rather than a problem.

You can apply this to what-if model-making very nicely. I call it Whiffjitsu, or the noble art of changing the backstory to fit the model you ended up with. If there's something on your model that looks like it shouldn't work, then have it not work in the backstory: lots of things have been tried that didn't work in real life. If it seems improbable that the air force who's markings you really like would ever buy the plane you want to put them on, then have them not buy it in the backstory: they get one for evaluation, paint it up in their markings, test it, then give it back and say "no thanks". Or you could have it painted up in that scheme by the manufacturer as part of their sales push. In real life there was an F-15 in French Air Force markings for a short while, painted up that way by McDD to try to sell it to the Armee de l'Air. It didn't work, but it existed.

You can also invent entire countries, histories and situations. Say you want to build an in-service SRA.1 fighter flying boat or Convair Sea Dart, but the problem is that nobody who might buy it was in the geo-political-military situation where they might need such a thing. Okay, invent a country that is: an archipelego of tiny islands that doesn't have room for runways would be the obvious solution. Some people aren't comfortable building Nazi hardware with swastikas on it. Fine, well why not rewrite history so that some eastern European states stay out of the Warsaw Pact and have to quickly build up arms industries based on the production lines the Germans built there whilst occupying them? Czechoslovakia flew quite a few ex-German designs post-war for a while in real life, as did Spain.

Learn the knack of turning the problem on it's head. Make the bug a feature.


Specifics.

Sidearm is just an AIM-9C SARH Sidewinder adapted to passive anti-radar homing. The differences are miniscule in real life, so I seriously doubt anyone would notice in 1/144th scale. A loadout of two Sidearms to take out a SAM site's radar aerial then two bombs (cluster bombs would be good) to take out the control cabin and/or launcher seems perfectly reasonably to me.

So your problem with the other one is that you want to put Python 3s on a Harrier, but you can't see your way clear to the IAF using it. That's logical (IF you're in a real-world frame-of-reference): the Harrier never did sell in the Middle East due to hot'n'high problems and it's jets kicking up a sand cloud that caused the pilot to lose situational awareness. So let's whiffjitsu this: if IAI or Rafael develop the fit but the IAF won't buy it, then they'll export it. So "all" you need to do is "sell" Harriers to someone who might also buy Israeli weapons. The one that immediately strikes me is Spain. Their Matadors were the only air defence for the Dedalo, so if they could trade early Sidewinders for something more potent, I'm pretty sure they would. Another possibility is China. They had a deal going at one point in the late 1970s to buy radarless attack versions of the Sea Harrier, and they've bought/co-devloped plenty of Israeli kit, so Harriers with Pythons seems the sort of thing they could end up with.

Now all of this is sticking to the real world. If you don't like any of the real world options, make up a country that would buy Harriers and Pythons. Make up a history that explains why they need them. Turn the problem on it's head. Make the bug a feature...

And lastly...
...relax. This is a hobby. It's meant to be fun. If it's stressing you out or making you anxious, then you can just stop doing it for a bit, with absolutely no consequences. Go for a walk, read a book, do some DIY, whatever, then come back to modelling when you feel like it. Not only can you do this to de-stress, but it might actually solve your modelling problems. Your brain tends to work differently when you do different things. There's something about the rhythm of walking or driving, for example, that gets your subconscious moving. Reading a book or watching TV might give you a new presepective on your model backstory.

Good luck, and have fun.

[PR19_Kit]

As Sir Rheged said, my 2nd Rule can override ANYthing in this area.

And to read it, see below my signature.