One-piece metal models handcrafted with love are the nadir of the hobby for me.  Of course, I have loads of plastics and resins too in 40 years of collecting and some are quite magnificent.  But nothing for me beats the joy of cracking open a blister pack, picking up a nice, straightforward, one-piece metal model and painting it up in a single session.

Its the difference for me between art and craft.  Busy modern CAD-designed models are all very well as faithful representations and clear and even exciting models.  But for me it feels they are a photograph in comparison to a Turner painting.  Its about impression and feeling, not rigorous detail.  There are some old models that are unmitigated tat, but there are many that are just wonderfully characterful – whether it is the expression on the face, or just the overall feeling of the model – and I will die on the hill that this is only something that can be done well by hand in greenstuff or beesputty, rather than on a computer screen.

Maybe its nostalgia, or the way my tastes were formed in my formative years – I am sure there are legions of young-uns who think the modern plastic stuff beats the pants off the “featureless blobs” of old metals, but whatever the cause, its how I am.

So while I collect modern stuff for gaming purposes, I can’t help but keep browsing the ranks of Alternative Armies ooh-ing and ah-ing over the old Asgard stuff, or flicking through my old copies of White Dwarf (when the issue number was still only in 2 digits) to squint at the grainy black and white photos of Citadel pre-slotta stuff.  And every now and then the odd one pops into my painting pile for old times sake.

Most of my gaming buddies think I’m slightly insane of course…  And maybe I am!