Shelf Queens

[TaiidanTomcat]

Thoughts, ideas, tips? Whats your best strategy for completing the seemingly uncompletable? 

[thegoodsgt]

The key is the flip side of that question, knowing when to give up on a project. There's a point where the building/painting process brings no joy. When your time is better spent on another model that makes you more excited, scrap the model and move on.

 

Steven Brown

Scale Model Soup

 

[11bee]

Self-loath.  Wife, neighbors and kids mock me.  Wife stops cooking meals, tells me quitters don't deserve to eat.  

 

Works for me, YMMV.  

[beingthehero]

Imagine they're anthropomorphic, much like the toys from Toy Story. Except you'd be the villain, since you're leaving them in a horrifying state of incompleteness as they shed bitter tears over their neglectful owner.

Speaking of which, I have like four models on the work desk that still need to be completed. :(

[murad]

i let them be, they are not going anywhere so they'll be built when their time comes.

 

depends on the reason why they went to the shelf of doom of course, i mean it might be a shortcoming on my part - until i learn a proper technique, they better stay unfinished instead of looking off (probably only to me) in the display cabinet.

[Pep]

2 hours ago, thegoodsgt said:

The key is the flip side of that question, knowing when to give up on a project. There's a point where the building/painting process brings no joy. When your time is better spent on another model that makes you more excited, scrap the model and move on.

 

Steven Brown

Scale Model Soup

 

I agree here, My friend all make fun of me because of all the half completed models i have. for me the process is what makes it fun, if as a bonus at the end i have a completed model then that would be a plus.

[Pep]

also when a new/better kit is release on the subject.

Example my hasegawa F-14d with all the trimmings ended up in the garbage, minus all the aftermarket.

as well as an academy Su-30.

[phantom]

I try to never do this. Can't remember the last time I did not finish what was on the table. Sure its happened but its been years.

[adamitri]

I like to build, I hate to paint.

[Don]

4 hours ago, adamitri said:

I like to build, I hate to paint.

I knew a builder many moons ago who had a display case filled with beautifully built models and none of them were painted. He enjoyed building models but hated painting them. So he built them and displayed them in the color of the kits plastic. Actually, it looked kind of neat. I remember a modeling review magazine back in the early/mid 1990's that built the kits being reviewed but never painted a single piece. Just reviewed them, built them,  and photographed them in the kits plastic.

 

Cheers!

[k5ikl]

18 hours ago, phantom said:

I try to never do this. Can't remember the last time I did not finish what was on the table. Sure its happened but its been years.

 

That's because you are a building machine Shawn.

Edited October 19, 2016 by k5ikl

[yardbird78]

Quote

 

I have 4 or 5 partials hiding in the corner of my shop.  I dig one out occasionally and work on it.  Eventually, they will all get finished, although, some of them have been there for a year or two already.

[Fighting Eighty-Four]

20 hours ago, adamitri said:

I like to build, I hate to paint.

This is one of the reasons I love this hobby.  There are just so many different approaches and different outlooks. 

 

For me, it is just the opposite.  The construction phase of the build is not my favorite, and I am in fact not very good at it.  Sure, I can assemble just fine, but dealing with seams and gaps is just not my forte.  I get to "good enough" easily.  The construction is just a means to an end for me, to get to the painting and weathering phase... which I love.  Perhaps this is because I am an artistic person, I feel this is were I get to let my creativity show.

 

But as for the shelf queen, I really can't answer that.  I have built 14 models so far, one at a time, and completed them all.  The only one I didn't finish was the very first one I attempted, a 1/48 Revell F-14D.  That one is a paint test mule that has no hope of ever being anything but so.

[skyhawk174]

Well I have several on my shelf of DOOM both armour and aircraft. Most of these are really old too. I have one model though that has beat me from day one so I gave it a time out on the shelf. Forgot about it until the other day when I was rearranging my model room and came across it looking at me with its sad eyes or would that be sad intakes? :)

 

It is the 1/48 Hasegawa F-4EJ that I started in 1993. It is at the painting stage now with even a white coat of paint on the underside. What got it to the shelf in the first place was a crack in the seam on the spine that keep showing up no matter what I do. I love using crazy glue to fill seams and I think what I am going to do is simply make the crack bigger and then I will be able to get a better bond with the new filler. Anyway, it is now back on the bench, or at least now beside the bench so a better chance of getting finished over winter maybe.

 

I love to paint and decal and I really don't mind the building part. It is all the preparation and seam filling that bugs me. I can hardly wait to get to the painting stage but I know if I short cut I will regret it later.

 

 

[RKic]

I have more unfinished than finished models. Sometimes the urge strikes to go work on something that has been sitting in a box for some time. When it comes it comes, I don't try to cultivate it. I have two or three models that are really only a few pieces away from done (e.g., Fujimi tomcat that needs ejection seats and canopy parts painted and installed), which I simply have no interest in finishing at the moment. One day. Some day. 

[Rex]

I have a different approach to shelf queens.

 

I keep them around in sight for a week or two, then if I don't go back to them, I put them in a kit box, label it as "started", and let it sit in the stash.

 

Later on, if they still don't call me to build them, and I need a part for a different project, I rob them first, instead of an unstarted kit. Once robbed a time or two, I just add their parts to the spares bin and either use the main hulk as a paint mule, or bin it entirely.

 

But, what I described doesn't happen very often, since I build at the "pewter level" (or "lead"?) of the Gold Silver Bronze standard, most of the time what others might call stalled projects just get finished and popped onto my shelves.

 

Just yesterday, I banished a Skyhawk to the "plain ole stickers for you" pile, I am trying to do a specific thing, and I could have added two Skyhawks to the shelf of doom, instead, I will just build those two at "pop onto the shelf" level, and start another kit for my "whoop dee doo" model for the Chattanooga show.

[WymanV]

 Every January, the bench gets cleared of all remaining projects and I start pulling kits out of The Naughty Closet with the intent of finishing at least one. Last year I finished one. This year I finished five. Right now, I have six in there and only one is an addition from this year.

 

 It's what works for me.

 

 Ken

[fulcrum1]

I have two small boys so if a project is going south I hang it from their ceiling. 

[Sarathi S.]

I have an Mi-28N that's been unpainted for the last 8 years...  I sorta just left it.  Oops.

[Beauslx]

I remember to this day the 2 worst hangar queens I ever had.  These kits did more damage to my building confidence than any kits I've built before or since. 

Number one was the Esci C-130 Gunship.  I hauled this kit around for years in the futile hope that someday I would get it to fit together without 10 pounds of putty. Eventually I did trash it, along with the empty tube of putty.

 

Number two was the Testors 1/48 SR-71. I think that is all I need to say....

Currently I have a Hasegawa A6M which is about 50% and an old Monogram AT6 Texan, which is about 20%.  I do plan to finish both.  

 

[model junky]

I have been building model airplanes for more than 30 years.  There was a point when I had a fear of not completing a kit like it would somehow strip me of my ability to complete a kit.  While I do have a shelf of doom, none of those kits is more than 5 years old which tells me they will all get done eventually.

 

My bigger problem is that some of the unbuilt/unstarted kits in my stash go back more than 10 years. I must have had a good reason to buy them at the time but still do not have the motivation to build them. 

 

My only "permanent" hangar queen is the Modelcraft F-82 Twin Mustang.  I am 95% done with the building but I am still burned out and have no desire to pick it back up.

 

Edited October 23, 2016 by model junky

[nspreitler]

My oldest uncompleted kit is an Academy P-47N with the full Aires detail set.  It was well beyond my ability at the time 10+ years ago.  I need to just trash it since I am pretty sure it is beyond repair now.  

 

The oldest kit in my stash is the ProModeler Ju-52 that I bought in 1999.  It was one of the first kits I bought when I got into the hobby as an adult, but for some reason have never touched.  

 

Other shelf queens right now are a Monogram B-24D, Bronco Jeep, a Roden C-124.  Those will get completed eventually.  

[ferrw]

I usually don't have too many sitting on the Shelf. What I like to use them for is to try a new technique or paint I have never tried before. If it works, the model gets finished. If not, it joins the paint mule team. The oldest one is a MiG 23 from 1998, but I just ordered some decals for it so it might get done before it is 20.😄

[davevw]

Building the cockpit is my least favourite. Found an eduard kit at a show a couple years ago, had that part done, nothing else. got it for $5 CAD. The guy did a good job on it too! If it wasn't buried in the stash, I'd do it next! Was the best buy for me!

 

[Spectre711]

Just to give it a rest and get plugging away every once in a while.  I'm still working on a Testors RF-4C in 1/48 that I got in the 80s and started up when I got back into modeling.  It was started back in 2009 or 2010.