These are often supplied in colored plastic, although smaller details would still require painting.
Often there is some simplification of detail as well for instance, automotive kits without opening hoods and no engine detail, or sometimes opaque windows with no interior detail. Often these kits are identical to another kit supplied in normal white or gray plastic except for the colored plastic or the prepainting, thus eliminating the large expense of creating another set of molds.Īnother trend which has become very extensive is to produce kits where the parts snap together, with no glue needed sometimes the majority of the parts snap together with a few requiring glue. One such trend has been to offer a fully detailed kit requiring normal assembly and gluing, but eliminate the often frustrating task of painting the kit by molding it out of colored plastic, or by supplying it prepainted and with decals applied. Recently, models requiring less skill, time, and/or effort have been marketed, targeted to younger or less skilled modelers as well as those who just wish to reduce the time and effort required to complete a model. The creation of custom automobile models is related to the creation of actual custom cars and often an individual may have an interest in both, although the cost of customizing a real car is obviously enormously greater than that of customizing a model.
While military, ship, and aircraft modelers prize accuracy above all, modelers of automobiles and science-fiction themes may attempt to duplicate an existing subject, or may depict a completely imaginary subject. Other subjects include science fiction vehicles and robots (most famously from the Gundam series), real spacecraft, buildings, animals, human figures, and characters from motion pictures.
The majority of models depict military vehicles, due to the wider variety of form and historical context compared to civilian vehicles. The most popular subjects of plastic models by far are vehicles such as aircraft, ships, automobiles, and armored vehicles such as tanks.