Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyler Durden
I sympathize with you as well.
I have purchased several of my models from EcardModels and while its a good resource and I have been mostly happy with the quality of the models I have purchased, most of the most desirable firms products are not available through them being that it's digital download.
And while I have over the years purchased many models from Paper Models International, even visiting his "storefront" before he left the business for good, and have bought many models online from GPM and even Mr Halinski himself and then paid the abusive shipping costs and waited weeks or longer for them to arrive, it has now got to the point where many of the models are just not available for any price due to being out of print, etc.
I am not saying its right to download pirated models and I agree with the original poster that those are usually garbage. However, those that design and sell the real deal need to make a better effort to ensure that the real items are available, and especially for those of us on the other side of the pond have access to those models.
I would be more than willing to purchase an authorized digital download of a Halinski from someone like EcardModels, accepting that the quality wouldn't be as good as an actual printed version. Or, better yet, if there was a printing house in the US that would be willing to reprint on demand said models and then ship them within the US for a reasonable price.
The bigger issue is that so many of the models are not available because of out of print status with seemingly no date when more will be reprinted. Those that rip off and pirate models and those that use them are in my opinion a nuisance, but the person that would build a Halinski or a GPM would not be satisfied with a pirated kit anyway due to the poor quality of the file and parts not fitting, etc.
Printing costs money, and inventory costs money which means models need to be in demand enough that it becomes profitable to do a production run of several hundred or several thousand prints. For certain subjects there will always be a demand, but it might be worth considering as an option licensing quality print shops to do copies on demand for older models or in locations where the cost of shipping make purchasing the real thing outrageous. In my opinion this problem needs to be solved so that designers are making money off of their designs, models are being sold, and customers have access to older models for which printed copies no longer exist.
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This all sounds pretty sensible. Worth remembering that music and film piracy massively decreased when affordable and accessible streaming platforms started up. Unfortunately ours is a niche hobby and there may be no financial incentive to offering kits via download vs the traditional way of printing and distributing them as books.
The best we can hope for in the meantime is that new digitally-available kits become available that match the quality and detail of the most desirable print editions. Personally I would appreciate this ability this brings to downscale a large kit, something that cannot really be done easily with a print. In the meantime, all these reasons are why I mainly purchase decent but moreorless simple kits and add a lot of scratchbuilt details. I can make a Marek or even a S&P look like something approaching a Halinski without spending a fortune, having to take care not to ruin the only copy of a kit, being able to add as much level of detail as I wish and being able to build in 72nd or 48th scale that I actually have space to display.