What Inspired You to Whiff?

[philp]

OK, sure that most of us got into whiffing because we wanted to build our model our way or something similar.  Maybe a bad experience at a club meeting, show, contest, etc with some JMN led you on this fun and crazy track.

Me, it was at the second US Nats I attended which was held in Seattle in 1992.  As I took in all the fantastic builds in all categories I came across a small section of kits.  Among them was a F7U Cutlass in RN markings.  Knowing aircraft pretty well I was floored by how cool this plane looked in this scheme it never carried.  That was it, the thoughts of how to build the many kits in the stash increased with new options.  I still have more RW builds planned than Whiffs but the second category grows almost daily.



So, what was it for you?

[The Rat]

A few years ago I was wanting to get back into the hobby, and started looking on-line for advice and such. Somehow I stumbled on a previous incarnation of this site, lost it for a while, frantically searched for it again, and then relocated it. It just looked like so much fun that I could no longer conceive of doing anything in the real world, I was well and truly hooked.

[Ed S]

I started years ago (can you say 30+) wondering how some prototype and proposed a/c would look in operational schemes.  So I build things like an FV-12 in gull gray/white USN colors, an F-15 STMD in Canadian markings, a Tornado ECR in USAF Euro scheme, etc.  I've branched out more since joining this website a couple years ago and have been a little more creative in my what "might have been" or what "might be" models.

Ed

[anthonyp]

The book Red Storm Rising.  That, and me looking at reality as a nice place to visit, but wouldn't want to live there.

[Scooterman]

Dunno if I had a specific epiphany, but during the mid 90's I thought a T-45 Goshawk would look cool in Heater/Ferris adversary colors.  Then the USMC Apache Longbow and the RAF MiG-29.  Had a navalized YF-23 in Jolly colors too.  Unfortunately all of those are long gone........

[Weaver]

Short answer? This site.  

I hadn't made a model since I was a teenager. As s a kid, I used to get bored building regular models and put bits together in different ways, but it was more Sci-Fi than "convincing" whiffs. When I got Tony Buttler's first BSP book, that got me making whiffs in my head and searching on the web for ideas, which got me to the Secret Projects site, during a lull at work when the new IT went TU. There's a standing instruction on there directing folk interested in pure fantasy as opposed to real paper projects to this site.

[JoeP]

I don't recall exactly what was the trigger. The first version of this site helped me find fellow whiffers, but I had done some whiffery before that. There was the book "The Hybrid Warship", but I think even that I bought because I wanted ideas to model.
It might have been the story of the battleship USS New Jersey, which could have undergone a number of alternate rebuildings. I built the tiny Niko "Faces II" USS NJ, which could have been my first adult whif.
I am glad I'm no JMN!

[jcf]

If I had to point at anything in particular it would be the film The Neptune Factor (1973) AKA:
An Underwater Odyssey    (undefined)
Conquest of the Deeps    USA (working title)
Die Odyssee der Neptun    West Germany
Eisvoleis ton vython    Greece
L'odissea del Neptune nell'impero sommerso    Italy
Neptun-katastrofen    Sweden
Neptunkatastrofen    Denmark
Odisea bajo el mar    Spain
Odyssée sous la mer    France
Seikkailu syvyydessä    Finland
The Neptune Disaster    USA (TV title).

I'd always mucked about with my toys (taking them apart, reassembling in a different way) and
models (impossible loadouts, colours at whim etc) and that film inspired me to cut up an
AMT Leif Ericson and turn it into a submersible. 'Twas fun and a learning experience,
i.e. too much lacquer based putty causes fatal meltdown. 

Now that the old AMT kit has been re-released I'm tempted to purchase one and re-create the sub.

[anthonyp]

I should probably clarify...  Red Storm Rising had a resistance group on Iceland that was providing intelligence on the Soviet occupation of Keflavik.  I ran with than and came up with a NATO (mostly US) response to the occupation of Keflavik ran out of a dog shaped outcrop where US Helos ran "interdiction" missions ran out of it with limited helos, and they had access to ground bases ASM's, disguised and hidden throughout Iceland.  My imagination in 1991 provided me with my first forays into Whif (but I didn't know what "Whif" was at the time...  I thought I was alone).

[Silver Fox]

Mine happened in the early '80's at CFB North Bay. I had just watched the old CF-100 fighters cum EW platforms retire. 'Brand New' CF-101's were coming in as the new EW platform... and I had this F-18 model just sitting there... I couldn't resist turning it into a CF-18 EW platform complete with Black Knight paint scheme a la the black Voodoo. The rest is history.

[philp]

Red Storm Rising also inspired one of the members of the Salt Lake club.  He did the aftermath of one of the land battles with a Chieftain knocked out.  Wish I still had a picture of it.

[ChernayaAkula]

Had contemplated doing a couple of aircraft in other liveries before, but I caught the whif bug in THIS THREAD on ARC. Numerous references to this site in said thread made me come over. And that's when I totally succumbed to the whif bug. 

<...> reality as a nice place to visit, but wouldn't want to live there.

That's excellent! 

[Daryl J.]

I was born that way.  My second kit, the 1/72 MPC B-17G was intentionally done differently ''just because''.   That was 1973 when I was 7.   

After that the Funfdekker Fokker sent me on a one way whiff trip.     Every 1/48 Monogram kit I built during my childhood was unique to itself in some way--usually alternative paint schemes and markings.  Mom still has some of them.

Hyperscale would occasionally tolerate a whiff suggestion back in the day.  Then came along a doctor-required avoidance of organic solvents about the time this site showed up and let me think out loud.       About 1/3 of the stash was purchase with intent to whiff.   



Daryl J.

[dragon]

I liked the idea of creating something so unique that no one else could claim they "had one too".  It would involve something that my sick imagination would construct in a fit of unstopable creativity.  Of course, observing the pique of rivet counters (aka Joyless Modeling Numbies), always adds to the creation- the cherry on top of the Ice Cream if you will.  Then I found this site, riddled with like minded individuals.  The rest is history (hystery?).

[NARSES2]

Initially as a teenager in a time and land long, long ago I built a Airfix Fw 190D with a 4 bladed prop and drop tanks (from a P-51) and some stretched sprue radar arial's, painted her in a light grey/blue grey camouflage and called her a night fighter. Can't say it was a conscious WIF, but it was the first one I'd actually thought through. Lots of my builds before that were non authentic but I wouldn't go as far as to call them WIF's.

Track forward many years and I'm thinking of getting back into the hobby. Started to by SAM and read a Mike McEvoy review on Lee Bagnall's "Padded Cell". Wrote to Lee, met the bunch and the rest is history