I've been thinking about this for a while. Yeah, it'll be a bit of a geek post. Sorry. Or not, your choice.
Oh, and it's long. If you're like REALLY impatient and just want to get to my stunning conclusion, go to the text at the end that is
THIS COLOR :).
So I was perusing some websites* where people try to make EXACT replicas of the models used in the
Star Wars movies (don't worry, this isn't really about the movies). Like, to the tune of paying $400 to find an out of production
model kit to get the transmission halves that were used on the Millennium Falcon (yeah, building one of those bad boys in scale could cost you thousands). So there are websites dedicated to identifying the exact kit parts so these guys** can replicate as exactly as possible these models seen in these movies***.
Some examples:
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| to scale, as used in the 89 film... |
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| Empire Strikes Back - exact replica of the Probe Droid Pod (every detail) |
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| from the Studio Scale forum - apparently the exact scale used in the film |
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| Every detail exact from the 32" (not to be confused with the 5') Millennium Falcon |
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| some of the greeblies (that's what the details culled from model kits are called) from the Faclon |
Yeah, these guys have some extreme talent. They're like some of the military model builders I've seen who try to faithfully replicate scenes from photos - down to the last detail - to be as historically accurate as humanly possible.
Some examples:
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| Vehicles completely accurate |
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| Insignia researched, ground cover probably historically accurate... |
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| close up of just one of 6 or seven figures detailed and painted for a single diorama |
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| another figure |
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| WW2 is very popular... |
Another obsession of mine is model trains. And you've got guys (sorry ladies, mostly guys there, too) who faithfully try to replicate their favorite real railroads as they existed during a given decade, or a given few years - or for the extremists, on a given day or week****:
Now there are those in all three categories who simply make stuff up, too:
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| HUGE ship called the Tempest - like 8 feet long - I LOVE this thing |
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| Here's the Tempest's hangar - look at the detail! |
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| Starfighter |
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| Another Cool Scratchbuild |
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| Jet Plane in Knights Templar paint scheme |
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| A tank that never was - an original design... |
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| Another tank that never was - a mashup of two different German tanks... |
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| John Allen's Gorre & Daphetid - a CLASSIC in scenery and operation for it's time - but set in the fictional Akinbak Mountain range... |
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| Influenced by the G&D, the Franklin and South Manchester |
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| A scene by Malcolm Furlow |
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| Muleshoe Meadows by John Olsen |
Those are craftsmen - craftspeople? Replicating. Talented like you wouldn't believe and I marvel at their work - and their creativity, in the way they express it. I would call it Constrained Creativity. Constrained by predetermined guidelines - the final result must look
exactly like A-B-C...
But then there are artists. Artists come up with original designs. Not more talented, just differently talented. And I marvel at their work as well - and their creativity, in the way they express it. I would call it Open Creativity.
Constrained Creativity works within more rules, so has to be MORE creative, but in different ways. "I have to figure out how to make this work to be exactly like
this." There are more boundaries, so, less freedom, but that means that instead of simply saying, "I'll just make something up," the Crafts...person has to say, "It has to look like this, so how am I going to accomplish the task?" A VERY different set of creative skills. Not any less creative, just different.
Original Creativity has fewer boundaries, fewer rules, so is more free - but that can be, counter-intuitively,
less creative. I mean, sometimes limits force us to think more creatively than when we are unbounded. The most terrifying thing to some writers is the blank page (or screen, as it were), to some artists is the blank canvas. Everything starts with an IDEA, right? But therein lies constraint already.
It's a model railroad. So it's not, by definition, going to have flying cars, right? I mean, it's about trains then. They can be futuristic, weird, whatever trains - but once you say "model railroad" you've set at least some parameters. If you say "flying cars" it's not trains anymore, right?
Flying Trains? AWESOME! But still, that's not flying cars. Different parameters, right? Limits. Rules.
So the Artist has to self impose rules to be creative. "I choose to say that light works this way in the painting. I choose to make this character a jerk in my movie. I choose to paint my soldiers with safety orange uniforms in my diorama." They are self-imposed rules that aid creativity. "Now, knowing that I'm insisting on this and this, how will the world work?" And questions have to be asked and answered (I think a topic for later).
Here's what I realized through the course of this OVERLY LOOOOONG dissertation...
Rules or Limitations or Boundaries are ESSENTIAL for creativity.
*So, if you ever wondered how I spend my time surfing the 'net...it's not nearly as insidious as it could be. Kinda pathetic maybe...
**Yeah, it's almost all guys. I don't think I've seen a single woman post on these sites, but there's bound to be one or two, right? Statistically speaking, that is. Thousand monkeys and all that...
***Pick a sci-fi movie and there are fans trying to replicate some element of if - including full sized props - some guy attempted to build a fill sized Millennium Falcon at one point...sheesh - and costumed people walk around at conventions all the time...but that's a post for another time...and a whole different kind of rant
****So there's two primary model train magazines, Model Railroader (that used to be more general, and, I would say, more focused on the Art) and Model Railroad Craftsman (which focuses more on, well, being a Craftsman...)
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