By Last time, I discussed the idea that realism in models might be a kind of deformation. For those who create models, this might be an “obvious” point. The decision of how detailed to make a model is closely tied to the idea of not going further (or being unable to). There is always a judgment involved, which I believe is part of the sense of modeling. The phrase “enhancing details for atmosphere” is also commonly seen. This approach prioritizes atmosphere over strict accuracy, adding details to create a certain feel. This is a way of skillfully lying to create a sense of reality, which might be a thought process similar to that of painters.
As for the subjects of models, the larger the structure, the greater the scale-down, making the decision of “how detailed to make it” even more crucial.
For example, common car models are often in 1/24 or 1/48 scale, tanks in 1/35 or 1/72, and airplanes from 1/24 to 1/72. In comparison, the N gauge for trains at 1/150 is quite small. However, for ships, the scale can be even smaller. If you were to create a model of a 350m long ship at a 1/24 scale, it would end up being 14.3m long, which is about the size of a small boat. That’s quite impractical, so the mainstream for ship models seems to be around 1/700 or 1/350. At 1/350, a 350m ship becomes a 1m model. This is a bit large for home display but looks impressive. At 1/700, it finally reaches about 50cm, which seems more realistic.
By the way, the largest aircraft carrier in the U.S. is about 330m, and the largest tanker is around 460m, so if these are the maximum sizes, other ships are naturally smaller. At a 1/700 scale, they would generally be within 50cm. Therefore, in ship modeling, several manufacturers have come to an agreement to produce many kits at a “let’s make it 1/700” scale. (The Waterline Series, which only kits the above-water parts of the ship.)
So, what does 1/700 scale look like? A person who is 180cm tall would be about 2.5mm tall. Small. Small, but not so small that they can’t be seen. At 1/350, they would be 5mm, which is about the size of a grain of rice. At this size, you might start to see some details of the person. The reason I am obsessively discussing these sizes is to set the stage for a later discussion about enhancing details in ship models.
As a child, I made a lot of ship models. The ones I made most were 1/700 scale warships, mostly from the old Imperial Navy. At that time, modern ship kits were not very common, and the old military ships were mainstream. (I will discuss the compatibility of plastic models with military items from the old Imperial era and the relationship between nationalism education, weapons, and models separately.)
Like many others, I made famous ships like Yamato and Akagi. I also made Maya, which is named after a local mountain. (Maya is the cruiser that the father of the siblings in “Grave of the Fireflies” was said to be on. If I remember correctly, Hideaki Anno depicted it in great detail, and Isao Takahata darkened it during filming.)
In terms of form, battleships with large cannons are easy for children to understand. As a child, I had already seen Space Battleship Yamato. The difficult part is with aircraft carriers, where the top of the ship is a flat flight deck. It supports itself in various ways, but the structure can become confusing. I wonder what is happening underneath that flat surface. With a 1/700 scale plastic model, the interior is not recreated. While battleships are easy to understand in terms of cannons and smokestacks, I couldn’t quite imagine the size of the people moving around or where they were. I didn’t do the calculations about the size of people mentioned earlier as a child.
So, while I could grasp the general form, I honestly felt that the details were vague.
However, after a long time away from model making, I started looking at model images on Instagram and was shocked. The kits I had made as a child looked completely different now. They are incredibly detailed. It felt like the resolution had jumped dramatically, like switching from a CRT TV to a 4K or 8K monitor.
There must be some secret to this… but it’s not a secret; it’s the “handrails.” The “handrails” are being recreated!
I rarely ride on ships, but I have been on a few. Naturally, there are handrails to prevent people from falling into the sea. In Top Gun, when Tom Cruise is looking out at the ocean, the presence of handrails makes it safe. When Goose throws his identification tag into the sea, he can swing back without worry. Without handrails, it would be a bit scary. After all, warships carry people, and they can’t just let people fall into the sea while moving, so of course, there are “handrails.”
The importance of these handrails is that they are not just on warships; they are everywhere in our daily lives, so just having handrails makes it possible to visualize human size.
The height of handrails is generally around 80cm to 100cm, and in some places, it might be around 120cm. If a person is 2.5mm tall, the handrails would be about 1mm to 1.5mm tall. Very small. Very small, but with this, it suddenly becomes clear that “there are people there.” Areas with handrails are “places where people go.” Of course, at about 1.5mm, it’s not exactly to scale, but the installation locations are based on reference materials, so you can think, “Oh, that was a passageway,” or if there are three rows of passageways on the outer wall of the ship, you might think, “Ah, this part of the ship is about three stories high,” or “This gangway is steep; it looks hard to climb.” In any case, the story of real human beings overlaps with the ship model.
Enhancing the details of such models to improve their realism is called detail-up, and a powerful aid in this enjoyment is “etching parts,” which are made of thin metal. Parts that are too small to be molded well in plastic tend to have less detail, which is a limitation of the material. However, with metal, finer parts can be created using the etching technique. Etching is a method used to create electronic circuit boards, where the areas not coated on the metal surface are dissolved with acid, allowing for very fine work on the metal sheet. If you’ve seen an electronic circuit board, you can imagine the fine metal lines beautifully connecting many components, and that level of detail allows for the creation of parts like handrails just a few millimeters in size. There are etching parts available for detail-up. Of course, even though there are parts available, they are incredibly small, and applying them to a small ship model based on reference materials is an extremely meticulous task that not everyone can do. Among modelers, there are some who do not use commercially available parts and create all their detail-ups from scratch. Watching the work videos of these master modelers can be astonishing, as time seems to melt away. It’s quite troublesome.
Thus, the ship models that I found somewhat vague as a child have significantly increased in resolution in recent years. It might be better to say the resolution of what you see with your eyes. When details are recreated in models, it feels like the resolution of your vision has improved. Of course, your eyesight doesn’t actually change, so this is an illusion of seeing the subject more clearly. However, it’s likely because the amount of visible information relative to the size of the object has increased. The illusion of seeing something clearly when looking at a model is enjoyable, like spatial modulation.
Recently, photos of “realistic models” have become popular, and this might be a similar principle. When you take a photo of a real scene with a very shallow depth of field, the front and back become blurred, making it look like you are photographing a miniature model. When you take aerial shots of entire city blocks, it feels like you are looking at an elaborate diorama. Since the subject is real, it is naturally captured in detail, meaning there is an enormous amount of information, so cognitively, even though you think you are looking at a miniature, the amount of information is so high that it feels like you are looking at an incredibly intricate miniature.
As a side note, I had the same feeling when I went to see the Tokyo Skytree. The Skytree has an exposed truss structure, but when you look up from below, it feels like your vision has improved a bit. I think it’s because the actual size of the Skytree is larger than what you would imagine from a typical truss structure, creating an illusion of seeing the details. This is a cognitive issue, and I believe it happens because a certain “common sense” has developed regarding the size of other truss structures. So, I can’t say that everyone will feel this way, but I think there are hints in the relationship between “precision” and “resolution” that can help in creating a sense of intricacy.
One more thing, connecting to the previous topic, is the expression of “water.”
Ships, of course, float on the sea or a lake. If it’s a submarine, it’s underwater. For a standalone model, that’s fine, but what about “scenes” using ship models? The challenge is how well to recreate “water,” “water surface,” and “waves” in the model.
What I saw as a child were generally models where plaster was poured and set, or where paper clay was used to create wave crests, painted, and finished with a transparent acrylic surface. Of course, there are still works today that achieve incredible water surface expressions using such techniques. However, the emergence of underwater models using highly transparent resin is a new material innovation. Even in recreating the shoreline, the transparency of the water surface is difficult to achieve without resin. (I have seen examples where a transparent plastic sheet was applied to the surface. I thought that was quite a high level of difficulty for a child.) Since ship models were typically displayed on stands, it is very exciting to see the range of scene expressions expand.
So far, I have primarily discussed ship models based on “plastic models,” but I have a feeling that the pinnacle of ship modeling might actually be wooden sailing ship models, a world I have never stepped into. However, it is increasingly fascinating, so next time, I would like to discuss that topic and explore why, due to steam engines and the Royal Navy of the British Empire, the British might favor railway models and ship models. We can discuss imperialism and models afterward.
Harada
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