FAQ2: Frequently Asked Questions of the AFV Painting Technique by Mig Jimenez, reviewed by Matthew Lenton.

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Thanks!

Sounds good,looking forward to having mine,now if they would only send it

Very good review, clear and informative... Thanks Matt!

I wanted to get this one as soon as it appeared on AK preorder, but decided to wait a bit to see where can I get the best deal... I'm still waiting to locate the book on Amazon where I bought FAQ1 from.

Mario

I got mine for my birthday last week......

I very much agree with the review! A definate piece of quality....

I know English isn't Mig's first language but the text is very readable and I thoroughly enjoy his philosophy and approach to our hobby....

I have this too, very useful and informative book.

I will need to order this. I admit I was a bit ambivalent on it simply because FAQ:1 had great pictures but descriptive text was seriously lacking, which I feel really hampered the book. If this one is much wordier I see that as a very good thing.

Matt

@firstcircle – Matthew,

Excellent review. Been thinking about adding this one, not just my tiny library, but to the books I keep open on the workbench. Although I may not get a personally signed book from Mig, I do admire his work and will be looking forward to my own copy. Your review just placed this hobby item at the top of my list.

~ Eddy

Looks To Be a Good companion for any Modeller as the first one was. The smaller pictures is a bit of a bummer. And I Would really like to add this to my collection.

http://www.creativemodels.co.uk/ak_interactive_book_faq_vol_2_english-p-25676.html?oscsid=803d1687783a51adf5cc29a5613aadc2

But for £57 you can shove it.

there are better prices out there. But not under £50 ( new from a retailer )

I'm not usually one to voice opinions in that manner. but i can only see serious, high budget Builders buying this. for the hobbyist its Way beyond acceptable reach. For me and my current scale, that's, 5 kits.

I'm not knocking the book, OR the shop, I buy a lot from CM.

Advanced painting techniques by Black Star is a prime example of affordable. solid advice and techniques. it may not have the name, but for those like me, on a budget is a more viable option. it may not have all the features, but it has the basics down, and cost me £5 new.

My Fifty Pence right there.

Great Review Btw Matthew, dont take my comments as an attack on your review!

James, don't worry, no offence taken, and you have a valid point; I didn't necessarily want to include this in the review, but despite this being a high quality production, the price seems very high, and I wondered if this was in any way related to this and FAQ1 being published by non-mainstream publishers. Mig mentions in the book that he made little or no money from FAQ1, and then there is the fact of it being out of print while clearly being still in demand. One wonders if that would have been the case had it been handled by a mainstream publisher, and why this new book was done in a similar wayy. Anyway, there it is, and maybe there is a good reason for all of that.
I certainly agree that this hobby can seem to suffer from pressure tending towards inflation, see the debate following the recent review of the Italeri Elefant for an example of the debate on what's important. Remember too Mig's excellent blog - free, you can subscribe, and he does update it ... and it has big photos!

I have to kind of agree with James, while I am not on a tight modeling budget, I find it a little expensive, considering the wealth of information available on the internet, and in magazines. Yes, I would like to have a copy of Mig's book, but not at that price. I have some of the older Verlinden books, and they are great. Here is Canada I have seen the FAQ 1 going for just over $100 CDN and found that expensive.

And I have to say the wealth of information HERE, it better then any book.

I have the book myself and would agree with the review, it is a massive step up from the first one, and the descriptions are are a big plus although i did find that a lot of the pictures are numbered but you don't get a worded outline for each one, just a general overhaul explanation which does explain it all but i would have liked to see it linked into the pictures a little more.

My real only gripe with the book is the way it has been bound makes it all but impossible to read and use at the same time, as you can not keep pages open on the workbench with out potentially damaging the book, i would have like to have seen it released as a hard cover spiral bound book as that would have allowed easier use on the bench.

is it worth the money, well im not disappointed with it, the pictures are sharp and clear, the descriptions well written and reasonably in depth, its well laid out and covers a lot the recent painting techniques, the fact MIG is travelling the world holding seminars in using these techniques speaks volumes and it will be up to the modeller how he/she actually puts them into practice

cheers

Keith

Agreed, that thing with the numbering cross referencing between text and photos is pretty strange, like possibly even an editorial error where the numbering was prepared but then not inserted into the text. As for the binding,I think you just have to bend it into submission, andI suspect spiral binding may push up the price even more.

Mig Jimenez is coming next weekend to my local dealer for a 2 days meet&greet visit
http://www.modellbau-koenig.de

James - a very valid point regarding price of the Black Star book as affordable relative to FAQ 2.

But owning both, and thinking about content and value for money, the FAQ book is actually miles ahead. It's a big initial outlay granted, but at 10 x the cost there's far far more than 10 x the content and variety of content.

just a thought......

Beauty and value are in the eyes of the beholder.
I saw it,I wanted it,I bought it.
To me it is something I wanted,and I decided that the cost was okay for me.

Others may feel it is a waste of money,but that's just someone's opinion.

Hello All,
I want to thank all of you for your constructive feedback regarding the FAQII.
Also, I want to let anyone has a pre-order in with AK Interactive USA that the title is on our hands and all pre-orders will ship this week.
Regards,
Iain Hamilton
AK Interactive USA

Just ordered mine. Can't wait.

I got my copy a couple of days ago. It's a pretty solid modeling reference and is significantly improved from the first, both in the range of content and the clearer photo and text explanations of the various techniques. it does pimp the AK products fairly hard but since the author helped develop them specifically for these applications and uses them, I'm cool with him actually describing what he uses.

Matt

I have a question not addressed by the review.

Are the techniques shown in the book more universal in terms of the art materials used, or is it very specifically a 300 page advertisement for MIG brand pigments, paints, etc.?

This is not a trolling attempt but a legitimate request to know - will I still learn techniques that would work to detail and weather military models no matter whose product I use?

And is it required to use such products? Or are there enough "universal" techniques to make it worthwhile?

I ask because there are some FAQ DVDs out by MIG's company, and I am trying to determine if watching videos, or reading the book, will teach me more about such work. I am not able to buy both.

Thank you!

James, as the reviewer, I guess I should reply - although since I have never viewed even a single modelling DVD by anyone, I won't be able to provide a definitive answer to your main question, though hopefully someone else will be able to help.

I'm not sure that I completely avoided that issue in the review by the way... you might re-read that para that starts "I suppose if there was another reservation, it might be that some parts can come across almost as a bit of an advert for AK Interactive products" and earlier on I do mention one section in particular that is based exclusively around AK products. There are however non-AK products used throughout, and other sections where it is plain that you could substitute other products (e.g. hairspray for "chipping fluid").

Personally I feel that there is often a little too much concern over what products to use - don't anyone get me started on the quality or colours of a certain brand of oil paint, or whether it is OK to use decorator's white spirit or not!



I am certain you would learn techniques that you will be able to use with generic products, and I do honestly think that most of it is about technique rather than products. Mig makes nice models mainly because he is a talented painter, not because he uses the right products.


As above, I think it is the techniques that count.


Part of me thinks that it is actually quite difficult to learn to paint from a book; although Mig has tried to give step by step instructions in some places quite successfully, in other places he, with some justification really, goes off into a bit of a "don't think there is one way to do this" type ramble, which in a way is quite inspirational. The other problem sometimes is that, as mentioned in the review and then in this thread, many of the photos are a bit too small to see what's really happening, plus the numbering of the photos isn't tied into the text but just comes rather pointlessly at the end of the text (surely an editorial error). In some ways FAQ 1 was a bit clearer in terms of the step by steps, though it didn't cover all of the same techniques.

If someone else can comment on the worth of the DVDs in comparison it would be nice - part of me thinks maybe watching someone doing it sounds like a better way to learn exactly how stumping and dragging and blending is done.

One final thing is that Mig's blog contains a lot of technique hints and tips and examples, and that's free, while this book and the DVDs are not.



Hope this was of some help.

Hi

I had a good browse of this book at a model show last week, it was very nicely printed but as others have said I don't think its worth the asking price, especially how its made which makes it difficult to read without damaging it.

For the asking price you could get 4 of the excellent Osprey Modelling Masterclass books which are all spiral bound and easy to read without damage and contain even more information than this one book.

Paul

Matthew, and Paul,

Thank you very much for your considerate comments. They really do help. And I did not wish to sound as though I was saying anything negative about the review - I just realized that, for me, there was something more I needed to know before I could act on it. Nice to hear that it's not so product-specific that you wouldn't achieve good results with other materials!

Much as I *want* this volume, I remain on the fence about it for my level of hobby work. Perhaps if I could thumb through a copy myself, I might end up deciding differently. Given that I am a visual learner, and can easily purchase 3-4 good books and DVDs for the same cost, for now I will probably go that route. And at my age, if it's harder to read, well, that's a genuine concern I need to consider. Good to know.

Hopefully, the chance to see the book in hand will still happen. But if not, I am content, and I appreciate your comments in helping me achieve that.

James

James-I can't really add much to what has already been said, I have the book, its lovely and has some useful information, but frankly I don't think its a must have item. I bought it because I found a copy on ebay a bit cheaper than the retail price, had I not come across that I wouldn't have the book.

In case you are interested I threw together a post a while back with some alternatives to the FAQ book, different online references which are equally as good at providing step by step info on finishing techniques by some of the worlds master modellers, collected from various modelling forums.


[url]https://armorama.kitmaker.net/forums/187379#1567036/url]

I have already visit Mig because I'm living in his country and we had a very nice weekend and a constructive talk there.I have my own opinion about the new FAQ: I admited that the book is mainly based on the products that AK selling, but it is true that the modelling tech is developing in two ways: one more complacated,one more easier. Even though the book maybe looks like an Ad for their products, I think that Mig give all of us a good solution for our hobby and our limited time.In another word,We can only use only 2-3 hours each day and bring you a nice work in one week.Use the least time to make the best effect of your work. That's it