Variations
Many modellers build dioramas as landscaped scenes built around one or more models. They are most common for military vehicles such as tanks, but airfield scenes and 2-3 ships in formation are also popular.
Conversions use a kit as a starting point, and modify it to be something else. For instance, kits of the USS Constitution ("Old Ironsides") are readily available, but the Constitution was just one of six sister ships, and an ambitious modeller will modify the kit, by sawing, filing, adding pieces, and so forth, to make a model of one of the others.
Scratch building is the creation of a model "from scratch" rather than a manufactured kit. True scratchbuilt models consist of parts made by hand and do not incorporate parts from other kits. These are rare. When parts from other kits are included, the art is technically called "Kit Bashing." Most pieces referred to as "scratchbuilt" are actually a combination of kit bashing and scratchbuilding. Thus, it has become common for either term to be used loosely to refer to these more common hybrid models.
Kitbashing is a modelling technique where parts from multiple model kits are combined to create a novel model form. For example, the effects crews on the various Star Trek TV shows frequently kitbashed multiple starship models to quickly create new classes of ship for use in background scenes where details would not be particularly obvious.
Read more about this topic: Plastic Model
Famous quotes containing the word variations:
“I may be able to spot arrowheads on the desert but a refrigerator is a jungle in which I am easily lost. My wife, however, will unerringly point out that the cheese or the leftover roast is hiding right in front of my eyes. Hundreds of such experiences convince me that men and women often inhabit quite different visual worlds. These are differences which cannot be attributed to variations in visual acuity. Man and women simply have learned to use their eyes in very different ways.”
—Edward T. Hall (b. 1914)