On The Way! Guide for Contributors

All readers are welcome to contribute their own input to this site, regardless of skill level. But please note: this site displays 1/72nd scale models only, or other kits that can be proven to actually scale out to 1/72nd, or very close to it. While we very much enjoy seeing well-built 1/76th scale kits, this site is only for posting 1/72nd scale models. We understand that some models from recognized 1/76th scale companies (such as Airfix) are actually much closer to 1/72nd scale than 1/76th. Reviews of these kits (with measurements and references) are most welcome.

The time it takes for us to post contributions will depend on how many we receive, and what our work schedule is like for the month. We post contributions in the order in which they were received. It may take up to a month to post your contributions. If you don't see your items posted by two months after submittal, drop us a line, and let us know. Perhaps it got lost. If you send in numerous contributions at one time, we will spread them out over several updates.

Please send any contribution to the On the Way! email address found on our contacts page.

We have set up a separate page to discuss Contributed Photo Guidelines. Please read this page.

The following are guidelines that we wish for contributors to follow.

Reader's Gallery

This is a place to submit photographs of your favorite kits, but without a construction review. Simply send in four or five digital photographs of your kit, and the name, and manufacturer of the kit in the email. We will do the rest. You may include a couple of sentences describing any significant changes made to the kit, or concise details of it's construction or painting. But don't include too much text, or it may have to be posted in the Construction Reviews section instead.

Kit Reviews

This is the page for full-length construction reviews. Here, you can feel free to be as verbose as you'd like, keeping in mind that the longer the text, the more interesting it needs to be to keep the reader's attention. For the narrative, please write it in the body of your email, or send it as a .txt file attached to your email. You can also attach it as an HTML, Wordperfect, or MS Word file (but text files are preferred). If you do your own HTML, follow the same format seen in the other reviews, or write to us to ask for a template to use.

Do not include price information or advertising in the review, unless the kit was provided to you as a review sample from either a retailer or manufacturer. In such cases, you must credit the source of the kit.
Don't spend any time on the historical background of the vehicle being modeled; there are plenty of other sites out there for that purpose.
Focus on the kit itself: what most impressed you about it, major weaknesses or errors, construction hassles, and descriptions of any additional work or changes you did to the basic model.
For negative criticisms of the kit, please be constructive rather than derogatory. But please don't hesitate to review poor kits; this forum is meant to help fellow modelers.
If you wish to make any claims about the scale accuracy of the kit, you must include the references you used to make such a judgement; simply stating that "It looks too small to me" is not adequate.
Feel free to review models which have already been reviewed.
Include as many photographs that you feel are necessary to show all important aspects of the model.
Include copies of the instruction sheets if possible. These will allow readers to get a feel as to the steps required to put the model together. They also usually contain painting, marking and camouflage information.
If you are not completely comfortable writing in English, we will be very happy to edit the spelling and grammar for you. We highly encourage international contributions.

In-box Previews

These are meant to give the readers a view of kits right off the shelf. Point out things such as quality of the molding and casting, any errors which are obvious prior to construction, and other notes you think are necessary. For the part scans, it is not necessary to photograph the parts, and then scan the photo. You can simply lay the parts directly on your scanner, and cover them with a blank piece of paper for a backdrop. A small scan of the box-top is useful to show the viewer what the kit will build into. Scans of the instructions and decal sheets would also be helpful for illustrative purposes.

Manufacturer's Kit Lists

We have mini-reviews of most of the kits we own on these kit tables, but we don't own them all! So if you own some kits not already reviewed, write up a one or two sentence mini-review for the kits and send them in. We'll add them to the lists. Keep the reviews short and concise, hitting on the major points. Please do not type in ALL CAPS, as we simply cut and paste from your email.

Articles

Anything and everything related to 1/72nd scale armor. Construction techniques are always appreciated, and comparison articles for models of the same vehicle from competing manufacturers are very popular. Do not plagiarize other's work, and be sure to quote sources where appropriate. Disagreements and counter-articles are great as long as they are polite. The I.M.S. article is always looking for good tips to be added to it, as is the article on what constitutes a good model.

Editorial Notes

We will not edit the content of any contributions unless asked (although we will edit the formatting). If we find something objectionable, we will confer with the writer before changing it. If you wish us to proof-read for typos, we would be happy to; just let us know. As mentioned above, we will be very happy to help international writers with their English.

eMail Policy

Due to the spread of email viruses, our policy is to post email addresses in the following format:

John Doe - john_doe(at)onthewaymodels(dot)com

To send email to such an address, you must type it by hand into your email program, replacing the (at) with the @ character and the (dot) with a period.

We will post contributors's email addresses to encourage discussion of your models. If you prefer to not have your email posted at all, let us know when you submit it and we will leave it off.

If you do not keep your virus scanner up-to-date, please do not put our email addresses into your address book!