I got along with Mark Thompson pretty well when he was the boss guy at FineScale Modeler magazine. He coached me into my first digital camera and always had time for my basic questions. (Even though he didn't hire me as an editor, I considered him a good guy.) When he was promoted (?) to Kalmbalch books, the news was from out of the blue and I was a bit saddened. We wouldn't be working together anymore.
But not surprisingly I'd thought of writing and illustrating a book of some sort on plastic models for a long time. The enthusiasm waxed and waned. Back in the early 90s I'd even written a proposal letter to Bob Johnson at Monogram about doing a book on the Century Series in 48th scale focused on the Monogram kits, of course. Unknown to me, Mr. Johnson had left the organization by the time I sent my package (including photos of some of the built "one-ohs" I'd done.) I have no idea where my stuff ended up, but I never heard from anyone. After Mark had been at his new job for a few months, and just to talk to my old publishing/magazine mentor again, if for no other reason, I gave Mr. Thompson a call. After the exchange of pleasantries and catching up, I innocently asked, "Is there any book I could do for you guys?"
Guess what. There was. Apparently the title and job "Building and Detailing Plastic Model Aircraft" had been in the hands of another author, but he for some reason, had to back out of the project. Was I interested in giving it a go? Of course I was. I'm pretty familiar with the subject. Mark told me to put an outline together, send it and we'd go from there.
Though the title didn't implicitly state it, I knew this would be Pat Hawkey's approach to building and detailing. I've long felt my approach, where pleasing the client and making some kind of profit was the only concern, differed some from the "typical" modeler who was focused on contest trophies or whatever else they may be focused on. Modeling efficiently is what I need to do. I don't have the luxury of weathering a model in ten different steps the way a relaxed hobbyist may do. I envy those that indulge in this stuff for "relaxation". It's quite the opposite for me. To stay at all above water I've got to build and paint quickly and not make mistakes. Mistakes cost time and time truly is money. So this book would demonstrate a "professional's" approach to building and detailing. One particular professional, anyway.
Or maybe my way isn't too different than the ways of the majority? I don't compare notes or get in on round table discussions of the topic. I do follow modeling forums and read the questions posed and the answers given. Where do these people come up with this advice? Who are these experts? I don't think I've ever seen an answer given that could've come from me. If what I read on these forums is indicative of "current thinking", there's a bit of a gulf between my way and the highway. I lurk and mostly remain silent. Wanna know what I think? How do I do it? Read my book. Or at least look at the pictures. There would be lots of pictures.
I gathered as many "how-to-build-models" books as I had or could find at the library to see and read what had been presented before. None of them showed in any real detail the actual slow process of gluing and building a model. An awful lot was just glossed over. I wanted to show in excruciating (if need be) detail the step-by-step of building a model (from essentially breaking the cellophane on the box) in the first chapter and expand on the basics in the following chapters. I knew what I wanted to show, but what kits to illustrate the lessons with? That was the part of the project that involved the most thought. What group of kits would make the most sensible and interesting mix? I thought mix was the key. Show the most variety possible in type and scale. Something for everybody, as it were. Far easier said than done. There are simply too many models to choose from.
I made tentative choices and put together the outline. Originally I think there were eight chapters and I saw each of them as equivalent to an article for FineScale. I submitted this and Mark was happy with it. Next step was for me to sign a contract saying I agreed to do this book and do it to Kalmbach specs. There would be a bit of a delay in receiving a contract, as I understood it, because they'd already paid an advance to the original author and they kinda wanted their money back. Until that matter was settled, things were on hold.
Assuming things would all work out, I began collecting what I'd need for my endeavor. Most of it was on hand. (What was on hand heavily influenced the choice of model subjects. I really didn't want to spend a lot of money acquiring visual aids for the book.) I also began traveling with a notebook. When on the road or waiting in the dentist's office or whatever, I'd jot a line or a thought as it came to me about whatever bit of the story I was thinking about. A couple months went by. Spring '07 turned into summer '07 and I had pretty much decided something had gone off the rails and this project wasn't really going to happen.
Then I got a call from Mark saying the contract was on the way. Agree with it, sign it, send it back, I'd get a $500 advance payment and we'd be in business. After a week, I emailed Mark to say the contract had to be on the slow boat from Waukesha as there was still no sign of it. He couldn't believe it. He wondered why he hadn't heard from me. Were my lawyers still sifting through the fine print? No, I assured him. No fine print or coarse print had arrived to sift through. So he put together a second copy and sent that off. This arrived in a couple days.
Once I had it in hand, and never having seen a book contract before, I called Bob Hayden (the original FineScale Modeler editor) to pick his brain a bit on the subject. As he's left Kalmbach in the past, he had no vested interest in whether I signed the contract or not. He said what I had sounded absolutely standard and pretty much what they'd come up with when he was with Kalmbach. He told me I should hold out for a bigger percent of the royalties as it was the author - no matter what anybody else says - who does the majority of the work. Of course I agreed with him. But then, I really wanted a book out there with my name on it and this being my first, I didn't think I had much leverage to ask for more money. (If this one sold off the charts, maybe I'd ask for a raise on the next one.) And it was obvious that I was never going to be able to retire on another couple percentage points. Hobby books don't make you rich.
In the end, I agreed to everything, signed my copy and sent it back to Mark. Shortly thereafter a check for $500 arrived. My wife and I went to a local eatery to celebrate. I was a little unsure of what was being celebrated. Seemed to me anybody could put together a good outline and sign a contract. No work at all there. The work was all in front of me.
P.S. Three weeks later the original contract arrived in my mailbox without any explanation. Priority mail delivery on that particular large envelope took four weeks. Good thing it wasn't something really important.
Part II
I figured the priority of the book would be the individual modeling projects. The intro chapters could be worked on at any point or at many points. Job 1 was building the models. I would not be able to fake pictures of finished models.
I would build the models in the order they would appear in the book. The first project was to be very basic. It would show the dirt-simple step-by-step procedure of assembling a plastic airplane. This first chapter would be illustrated with lots and lots of images. I’ve taken countless pictures of my working on models in the past. A bit of a wrench thrown into this book project was the requirement for RAW images vs. high-res jpegs. RAW files are huge. Five would fill my camera’s memory card, then it would be stop everything to go downstairs and download.
The other twist was the need for accurate white balance with these RAW images. The procedure here seemed simple enough. Get a photo gray card, set the custom white balance on the camera by imaging the card under the same light source that would be used to light the subject of the images. As simple as it sounds, I did something wrong. Project number one got underway with pictures being taken at every half step. The images looked fine unless my fingers appeared (as they frequently did) in them. They looked decidedly green and unhealthy. After progressing through a dozen or so images and significant model work being done, I realized something was definitely amiss. Not only were the pictures going wrong, the model was proving to be more troublesome than anticipated. I was learning lesson one that would return to haunt me later in the project: pick a subject you know that isn’t going to spring any surprises on you.
I sent some images to Mark and expressed my concern. No doubt about it, white balance problem he assured me. So I went back to the camera manual, figured out my goof and got squared away in that department. The model was another story. I couldn’t re-build and re-shoot what I’d already done. In addition, the kit itself was not currently being produced. It wouldn’t have been hard to find one on eBay, but there was the lost time and expense. I hit on a plan B model and chalked up everything done to this point as a learning experience. (How badly I would’ve liked this “experience session” back time- wise some months later.)
With the white balance where it should be and a new kit project, I started again. Things went well. Build projects numbers one and two got finished, and Mark was pleased with sample images I sent.
I embarked on project number three, which would demonstrate scribing a model. I made it doubly interesting (I hoped) by choosing a subject that would wear a natural metal finish. This was where taking on a kit I was totally unfamiliar with bit me in the ass a good one. The scribing was no problem at all. (Or no more problem than usual.) The kit itself provided a number of unpleasant surprises that slowed progress to a crawl then a virtual stop. Most fortunately, I had a second copy, as this kit was another out-of-production subject. Between the two of them, I’d be able to show one example convincingly come together. However, it meant essentially building one and a half of these things and scribing them both. I hadn’t budgeted time for that. Morale suffered.
As the scribing project seemed to only be dragging me down, I totally switched gears. The book title “Building and Detailing” suggested nothing about “Painting and Finishing”. Such an important aspect of any model couldn’t be ignored. I hadn’t included anything specifically along these lines in the outline I submitted, but I thought I could squeeze it in without any problem. I had a Hasegawa P-47 ready for a paint job from years ago. My plan was to do it in British markings, which would provide a good canvas for a “weathering” exercise. So that’s what I did.
Then with nearly half a book behind me, I thought to check numbers. The contract stipulated: “It is agreed and understood that the Author will write the text, which is to consist of not less than 35,000 words and not more than 50,000 words; furnish no fewer than 150 and no more than 300 color photographs; and supply any needed tables and charts.” I counted my images thus far and it was clear I was on track to go way over the 300 limit. I’d have to be careful even without this newly introduced painting and finishing chapter. The sickening realization sunk in that there was just no room for the Thunderbolt. While I was certain I could reword it some and submit it to FSM as a proper magazine article (it was published March ’09), I had lost another significant chunk of time book-wise.
Summer was winding down. My deadline was Jan.15 and I had three of eight projects finished. Not good. This was not good to the extent I realized I’d never make my deadline building the models originally listed in my outline. Adjustments would have to be made. Corners would have to be cut. A very involved multi-engined subject would have to be abandoned. I’d imagined it being a grand finale sort of thing – something guys might talk about long after my departure. I was anything but happy, but I had no choice. I racked my brain to come up with a couple project substitutions – simpler jobs than originally chosen to demonstrate the same lessons I wanted to give. I sent a revised outline to Mark and he had no problem with it. I would have to deal with the fact that my book, my big statement to the world, would not be as impressive as originally conceived. (Easy there, ego.)
I got cranking. The scribing project got finished enough, though there were a couple detail aspects lacking that weren’t necessities and would be added only if time allowed. It was now apparent that instead of working one project to completion at a time as had been the original intent, I’d better just get everything going and not worry about finishing them in any particular order.
The double whammy in all of this was only two of the models involved (among the last to be finished) had homes to go to when they were done. All the others were orphans for the time being. Nobody was paying for them. I was putting out huge effort here and not getting anything tangible in return. I got a check from FSM for the Thunderbolt article, but that was about all. There’d be another chunk of money from Kalmbach in January when all the material was delivered, but that was way up the road.
October arrived and I tallied what I’d done and what I yet had to do. I wasn’t in trouble, but I was close to it. If I worked as close to non-stop as I could for the next two and a half months, and if nothing at all went wrong, I should be OK. It was the “if nothing goes wrong” part that concerned me. The dreaded “what ifs”.
What if I got sick? What if a family member got sick? What if an ice storm took out the power for a few days? Then there were Thanksgiving and Christmas. I had no time for holidays this year. For the first time in my model-building career, I had to forgo working in front of the TV screen while the Detroit Lions played. (Coincidentally this was the famous season they went 0-16. If I was going to miss watching the Lions, this was the season to do it.) I had time for only work, and just barely enough for that.
In November, I started setting the alarm for 6 a.m., an hour earlier than standard wake-up call. Maybe I could extend the day some. Thus began the most intense modeling/writing/imaging period of my life. Incredibly, there were almost no mistakes made. Nor was there much appreciation of the finished models. They were simply jobs that absolutely needed to be done. (So you want to be a professional modeler, eh?)
The one thing that went wrong was about the only thing that simply could not go wrong. One of the projects required a new canopy. The one supplied was damaged and not entirely accurate anyway. I would have to vacuform my own replacement. That in itself was trouble enough. Complicating things was the fact that there was some internal structure that had to be represented. This meant creating a usable clear piece and then tempt fate by supergluing bits on the inside perfectly the first time. No mistakes. Can afford no mistakes.
In every way, the canopy was a nightmare. Between mechanical and material malfunctions and my own screw-ups, I began to feel despair creeping into my head. I simply had to get it right. This canopy was not something I could order from Squadron or somewhere. The only way it would come to be was by my own hand. Inevitably, by learning many ways how not to do it, I achieved acceptable results. Not perfect, but acceptable. I spent at least two entire days on that one small piece of project. It was a perfect example of that “unforeseen” factor.
By New Year’s Day, with two weeks remaining until deadline, I knew I wasn’t going to make it. I’d be able to deliver about 90 percent of the project and get the balance in before February. That would be acceptable, (they certainly weren’t going to do an edit and layout job in two weeks, were they?) but I was pissed with myself. I learned a lesson about pacing, that was for sure. The good news was I would have no problem at all with the number of images or words required. I was supplying Kalmbach with an awful lot of material. There was no doubt they’d cut me a little slack on the deadline.
The complete package was in the publisher’s hands the beginning of February. A few weeks later my second advance royalties check arrived. Halleluiah! Income! The book spawned a number of “orphan” models whose sales potential was uncertain at best. One I’d sent to Kalmbach so they could make it the subject of the cover. My book, their cover. I didn’t know if I’d ever see that one again. Hard to sell a model that lives in Waukesha, and selling models is allegedly what I did for a living. 2008 was a lean year for me as well.
In April I got the first chunk of my work back, processed and ready for a proofread. It was quickly obvious that while my name would be on the cover, this would be a Pat Hawkey-Mark Thompson collaboration. For the most part, I had no problem with the edits. There were a couple sentences I didn’t understand and a few flat out mistakes, but as a whole, I liked what I read.
One of the comments Mark made concerned what he thought was my glossing over decal procedure. The first project in the book demonstrates building and completing a model from start to finish, including the decals, of course. He was right. Here was something I took totally for granted, and was in fact a rather important part of the finishing process. So I sat down and wrote a small chunk on the joy and/or sorrow of decals and set up a couple illustrations. Would I never be done with this thing!?
In the middle of July the near-final proof pages arrived. Here was the book as it was going to be seen, though short some photo captions. After my proofread, I had new appreciation for the amount I had written. Again, it was not exactly what I’d word processed, but Mark’s tweaks and changes made sense. Since he was in the business of creating and selling books, (and we both want this thing to sell) I trusted his judgment in these things.