When i was told to write an essay that i would have to send away to colleges about something important in my life, this little hobby of ours popped into my head immediatly. Keep in mind this is only the first draft, with LOTS of revision needed down the road (something we modelers understand very well!) I understand it is kinda lenghty, but if you stick with it, im sure you will love it! feel free to ass or critique anything!
Life in a Smaller Scale
It may, from the perspective from someone on the outside, seem strange for a person’s hobby to swallow up so much of their lives. For me, however, that perceived strangeness was never a consideration when I took up model building. Over the course of six years, the hobby transformed itself from slapping the ill-fitting parts of an obsolete Revell 1/48 scale Huey attack helicopter together on the floor of my Uncle Pete’s apartment one Easter Sunday to a lifelong passion for historical authenticity, machine engineered detailing parts, and smooth-as-glass paint jobs with realistic and carefully applied weathering effects. Looking back, I do not think it was the builder who transformed the models, but the models themselves that transformed the builder into who he is today.
When I started out snapping pieces of poorly molded plastic parts off their trees (called sprues) on my first kits, I had no idea that my life will be changed forever. What started out as something fun to pass the time quickly snow-balled its way into becoming a passion. As the number of kits in my “completed” pile grew, my skills grew exponentially (although no modeler can say that his completed pile is anywhere close to being the size of his to-do pile without being labeled a liar!). In the past I had allowed the kit to “build me,” but it wasn’t long before I began to “build the kit;” that is, not letting the manufacturers shortcomings dominate the result of the overall build. Soon, I grew tired of the cheap kits available on the shelves of a local Michaels arts-and-crafts store and traveled to a hobby shop, where I picked up my first armor build.
I guess you can say the hobby didn’t grow into a full-fledged obsession until I picked up that kit: a 1/48 scale M26 Pershing tank made by the world renowned, Japanese manufacturer known as Tamiya. On that model, I began to master the use of an airbrush; a temperamental little device that must have perfect conditions of paint viscosity, air pressure, distance from the model, and room temperature. Needles to say it took a great deal of patience (and many jars of paint, thinner, and pieces of cardboard) until I got good results! I also began a great deal of research about the vehicle that I was building, as the story of any tank truly fascinates me. I learned the essentials- its speed, suspension system, gun size, and crew capacity- from a small window on the inside of the instructions. However, I wanted to know more. After purchasing book after book, along with a great deal of time on the wonderful internet, I began to feed my knowledge of the tank- was it a successful design? Could it contend with its adversaries? What made it perform poorly? What made it perform superiorly? I also began to communicate with members of the hobby around the world using online forums (armorama.com, missing-lynx.com, and finescale.com, to name a few). I found a gold-mine of information not only about how to get a certain effect, but about history as well. It was here that I learned painting techniques to aid in airbrushing, applying weathering effects like washes, pigments, and filters, along with how to make an accurate scale replica from what was originally intended to be a toy.
It is difficult to begin to list all the skills modeling has taught me, because there are just so many! The most obvious is patience; no technique on any model was successful on its first try (let alone the third!), and almost all were learned over the course of many, many failed attempts. Modeling has taught me to “think on the fly-” to come up with solutions to problems to improve, revise, and substitute parts and details on my kits. Sometimes, the parts I am given are inadequate, or just plain don’t fit right, and a new solution has to be devised. It has taught me resourcefulness as many of the tools I use to get great results are simple, common house hold materials, like a clear acrylic used to give tile floors a shine. Modeling has taught me to see the big picture just by looking at a box full of parts, as well as an attention to detail and being able to look at things from a different perspective. Perhaps the most interesting skill modeling has taught me was to be able to analyze the kit piece by piece, which in turn made me analyze the actual vehicle. Often I clean up a part and think “what the heck is this?” and follow up with a bit of research to find out what that part actually did. Modeling has also taught me to plan ahead- do I have the supplies I need? How can I make this model look as if it just came ashore on a beach? Lastly, and possibly the most important, is self discipline. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, a build goes south and the builder is enthralled in a myriad of issues. Modeling has tough me when everything seems to go wrong, to take a step back, think, analyze, problem solve, and overcome the issues at hand.
Even though my life has benefited so largely from the modeling hobby, I cannot reciprocate and ensure the safety of the hobby into the future. Sadly, it is losing the battle for the interests of youths to more instantly gratifying activities such as high-tech video games. I cant even safely say that my future will be filled with boxes of Japanese plastic parts and jars of accurately researched modeling paint as I enter a new chapter of my life, where most of my time (not to mention money) will be devoted to a college education and starting up a family. And even when I do return to my X-acto knife and airbrush, I cannot guarantee that my own children will be as passionate for the hobby as I was when I was their age. I can only pray that the hobbies they choose are as beneficial to their lives as modeling was to mine.