Hello Jim

While I appreciate your intention, I am not in favour of anything that further complicates the current forum structures. By adding yet more discussion groups to an already (IMO) complex structure, no matter how good the intent, you will only confuse those very people you hope to assist: the beginners.

In my experience the beginners on these forums are well received. That said, I have often observed irritation by veterans of the craft and these forums at questions deemed to be “silly” simply because the respondent is not aware of the skill level of the modeller. This is naturally the sort of thing you seek to eliminate by the introduction of your beginners forum.

My suggestion is as follows: instead of introducing more forums why not simply introduce a badge similar to your contributors (speaking of which, when will this be introduced on the other Kitmaker sites?) or staff badge denoting the modeller’s skill level? Allow the modeller decide what their skill level should be from a predefined selection of e.g. Beginner, intermediate, master. By introducing such a feature when the poster asks a question, readers can easily see the member’s skill level. Similarly, the original poster will be able to note the skill level of the person answering the question and thus assign a personal value to the quality of the response.

Focusing on figures in particular: I am not in favour of the cross-genre dissemination that I frequently see on these forums. To clarify what I mean, for example I am not in favour of seeing vignettes posted on MSW simply because they allude to a maritime these, when they should clearly by the very nature of a vignette or diorama appear on Armorama or Historicus Forma. In fact, if you will indulge my momentary deviation from the topic at hand, should vignettes even appear on Armorama since in essence they are specifically figure related – any “vignette” which features a complete vehicle is by definition a diorama.

Perhaps a bit of an extreme example, but I would no more like to see Armorama take over the figure role (like it or not, if you increase activity on your figure forum you will inevitably be competing with HF for a small piece of the figurative pie) that I would like to see HF start a tank building section within their groundwork forum simply because AFV “wedgies” are en vogue.

Instead of increasing participation of the Armorama figure forum, why not encourage more participation in HF? HF seems dismally quiet. In fact, it is probably the quietest site on Kitmaker at the moment, considering that at one time about a year ago it seemed to be second only to Armorama. Have the HF and Armorama staff actually ever discussed what they can do together to increase participation and cross-site collaboration?

To summarise, I appreciate the intent however in my opinion modellers of all skill levels would be better served by the introduction of a skill indicator that a further expansion to an already complicated site architecture. Similarly, armour modellers should use the resources already available to them on Historicus Forma and actively participate in improving that site.

John

Johannes, firstly, thanks for the very well-considered comments.




Without getting into complacency, I feel that, yes, we're getting it more or less right. Other Forums are very much more geared towards the 'Uber-Modeler' - while I find these sites useful, they can be intimidating towards the less-experienced.




In this, you make a very valid point. In some respects, i'd almost like to see LESS traffic on Armorama in figures and this area moved entirely to HF. However, the problem remains, figure modeling (99% of which is 1/35th scale) still has an important role in Armorama as do Dioramas. As both are directly-related to Armor modeling, it's somewhat inevitable that figures will remain an important part of Armorama. That said, I would urge those who model both, to spend a lot more time on HF - there are some real gems in the Forums and in Features. It's sad that people are NOT using both.

Remember - HF is ONLY a mouse-click away. It's not rocket science, if you can arrive here, you'll find it as easy to go to HF...

I still maintain, that we need some more 'beginner-friendly' facilities although now, i'm tending to see it more in terms of AFV modeling with more work put in towards increasing traffic on HF..

JIm
I would be very interested, because I had hard time with figures.

Coming back to the hobby I consider myself a newbie in both AFV and figures. I'm not however in favor of figure-oriented forum here at AR. I personally have no issue with hitting the tab above and posting my question over at HF. True, the trafic at HF is low comparing to AR, but that's a different story...

I would like to see a beginner FAQ section on both AR and HF - for respective subjects though. It would be easier for someone like me to find what I'm looking for. Yeah, there is a search feature - but many feel for some reason that posting the question is faster. So I feel some sort of FAQ section would be definitely beneficial.

I could certainly use any help and information provided in a beginners area. I have found much information that is helpful reviewing the topics posted in the other discussion groups but to have one area for specific help would have been great when I first returned to modeling a few months ago.

Aeroscale has a discussion group specifically for beginners that seems to work very well. Sometimes people just don't know where to begin.

How difficult would it be to link information from one site to another in the Kitmaker network? I have seen postings recommending one site or another. I for one can use all the help I can get. I don't think it would clutter the site up by having a new discussion area but would rather condense many of the questions because the same beginner question which could be posted in several areas (how to assemble magic tracks, as an example) would be posted in one place where a beginner would be more likely to look.

i am a beginner in figure painting, this means that i welcom all the help i can get.
so i wold like to compeed with the SUPERMODELLERS on this forum.
besides............ if all the experts are in the expert section and i am in the beginners section with all the other beginners, who wil tutor me????
someone said that every expert once was a beginner.
having said this, a personel opinion:
most of the armor builders see figures as diofilling so the tanks/trucks and plains look better.........this is too bad. because figure modeling is just as rewarding as all the other modeling.

regards john

I would love to learn the art of figure painting, any thing to make mine look better

hmmmm a beginnersforum??
I don't know. I like the blend of beginners, experts and everyone in between. This way we can all learn from one another.
Maybe beginners are being scared off by the expert's works and reluctant to show their own builds, but in the end you can only learn from your "mistakes" and constructive feedback.

On the other hand a section dedicated to modellingbasics and FAQ's might be a welcome addition. You need the basics to find your own way and style, I think.
From time to time we will be seeing the same questions over and over again, because there are new people joining up all the time and we should be careful not to overreact on those! These people want to learn, just as we had to in the beginning. (I still am!)