Start with the archive
The archive introduces makers, works, photographs, process materials, and the historical background of Japanese solid models.
Overview
Four paths into solid model culture
This page serves as a simple entrance. Visitors can begin with the archive, follow actual build records, read essays on the meaning of the practice, or explore accumulated conversations through the forum.
Follow the records
Build records show how form emerges through observation, correction, judgment, and accumulated craft knowledge.
Archive
The central archive
The Japanese Solid Model Archive is the main point of access for preserved records. It gathers works, makers, photographs, texts, and process materials in Japanese and English.
Preserving works, makers, and processes
The archive is not only a gallery of completed models. It preserves how models were made, how aircraft forms were interpreted, and how individual makers recorded their decisions. Its purpose is to keep these materials readable for future modelers, researchers, and enthusiasts.
Build Records
Reading a tradition through records
Japanese solid model culture can be understood through records that preserve process, judgment, and ways of seeing form. These records show how a model is shaped, corrected, and brought into a new state of completion.
From Omachi and Takami to Fukuda and beyond
The build records collected here trace a continuing tradition across makers and generations. They are an entry into the knowledge embedded in making: drawings, wood, surface judgment, correction, documentation, and memory.
Essays / Notes
Thinking about solid models
Essays and notes provide a wider context for the archive. They explain why solid models matter, what it means to read form, and how making can become a form of cultural memory.
Solid Model Archive on Medium
The English essay series introduces solid model culture to a wider international audience. It connects hand-making, aircraft form, Japanese modeling history, and archival practice.
Solid Model Archive on note
The Japanese-language note series records background reflections, activity reports, and explanations that support the archive and its public development.
Forum
A place for dialogue and memory
The forum preserves conversations about solid models, methods, references, and memories. It complements the archive by keeping exchanges among modelers accessible.
Solid Model Forum
The forum supports discussion and discovery. It connects individual makers, historical materials, build questions, and shared appreciation of the solid model tradition.