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Greetings fellow enthusiasts, research fiends and devotees. *What are Habits? *Thanks to our star pupil Neil_E we have several good starting points and I'll reference them here.
To be accurate and on the same page, a Habit is an application of procedures that are predetermined by education or experince. *Or the shorter answer 'a fixed way of responding'. *Two immediate *topics come to mind, 'good' habits and 'bad' habits. *The sub-topics for these categories are 'Practical' *and 'Study'. *
1. Functional habits are both applicable to practical and study (or research) for a modeler. *These do enable the modeler to be productive and sometimes efficient in his build routine (especially for those of us working on a budget), enabling the completion of a satisfactory number of subjects, leading to satisfaction of whatever needs lead her/him to make models in the first place.
2. Overt Dysfunctional habits. Most of us have these to one degree or another. These may be concrete such as not holding the scriber in a way that gives us the best results, to adopting a particular build sequence because we like it, to a tried and true way of doing things that we like but may not be the optimium way of doing things. It may relate to emotional habits such as a low frustration tolerance leading us to rush things and build at less than our best but build more. The cause for this type of habit is most often time restraint.
3. Covert Dysfunctional habits. Most of us don't have these. These are habits, routines that try to take over in your Functional Habits and lead directly to AMS. We want to build our best with as much detail as possible in order to do the best job possible. After awhile this becomes fanatical. *It is these types that appear to regularly take Judges Grand National standing in the IPMS Nationals. They build one model every 1-3 years. *
4. Creative Habits in its best definition is means building regularly the same type of models that exercise the same discrete skills in order to keep the level of the build high, but chosing one or more components and stretching your skills. *Adding a complete engine, actuating the control surfaces, scratchbuilding a new component. As Neil_E has said '... Building outside the comfort zone can be good for all of us at sometime...' *To do this we must think outside the comfort zone. Here are some that I use:
A. Using pastel colored highlightersI color code the steps on an instruction sheet. *Pre-planning I decide what I will;
Delete = in Yellow.
Scratchbuild or alter = in Green.
Replace with an existing conversion or detail set ( or even another part from a whole different kit.) Blue.
completed= Pink to show that I have done this and can move on.
Pop Quiz: What is the OD approach?
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