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Our place in the market.............
For
years, ship modeling has remained one of the smaller facets of the model
industry.
Those who chose to model aircraft, armor, cars and other vehicles have
long had a
seemingly endless variety of kits and reference materials from which to
choose, while the
ship modeling community made do with the occasional release of a new kit,
or the re-release
of older kits that were far
from state-of-the-art. The comparatively small number of ship
modelers made it difficult for manufacturers to justify the expense of
tooling up to produce
injection molded plastic kits. Subjects remained limited, and there was a
good deal of
repetition among manufacturers. That has now changed!
The rise of “cottage industry”
manufacturers producing resin kits has proved a boon to
ship modelers. Though the “bottom line” still affects the decision as
to what kit to produce, resin kit manufacturers can achieve a profit with
far fewer units sold than is the case with injection-molded kits. And so
the choice of ships available in model form has expanded exponentially
from companies such as White Ensign Models, Classic Warships, Corsair
Armada, Iron Shipwright, Nautilus Models, Tom’s Modelworks, Loose Cannon
Productions, and JAG Collective, to name a few. The expansion of available
subjects has given rise to photo-etched detail parts from Gold Medal
Models, Flagship Models, Tom’s Modelworks. More books and other
reference materials are becoming available from smaller publishers such as
WR Press as well as from Naval Institute Press and other major houses.
Mail-order and web-based hobby shops such as Pacific Front Hobbies,
Floating Drydock, and Naval Base all expanded their stock, and
ship-focused web sites developed. What was missing? Color reference
material. Long available to the aircraft and armor modelers, there was
very little available for the ship modeler. Though the major navies of the
world all used distinctive peacetime colors and a wide range of wartime
camouflage colors, the perception remained with many that warships were
all painted “Battleship Gray” or some other ubiquitous color. Snyder
and Short Enterprises has set out to meet this need and to supply accurate
color information for the major navies of the Second World War.
We would like to hear from you. Please feel free
to contact us with suggestions for future S&S projects, with
contributions to our body of knowledge, or with questions. We will do our
best to respond to the latter, but please keep in mind that both of us
have other, full-time jobs and that ours is not a research service.
Thank you for your interest and your
purchases, and happy modeling!
John Snyder and Randy Short |