For me, I got interested after watching “Tora Tora Tora”. This got me into ship-building. Next, my best friend helped me evolve to Monagram airplanes(had a blast with them) and finally through exhaustive research , documentaries(World at War), etc , to my present fixation with armor. Finally, my modelling is evolving into modern warfare, courtesy of the Gulf War and Operation Iraqi Freedom. Is there anything more impressive than an Abrams tank? Not!
I have always built lego since childhood and thats where I got my love for building stuuff.Later I got interested in warfare.These factors combined,modelling became a new hobby for me.
My Dad took me round to my uncles house when i was about 4 or 5 years old and he was building a (to me)large scale DH2. i was totaly hooked and have been hooked ever since. thats 32 years ago and i am still not that good a modeller but that don’t put me off, even when i was at an IPMS meeting and one member asked me if i had put the laquer on with a trowel, that didn’t put me off modelling (it did put me off being an IPMS member though)and the plane wasn’t that bad “honest”. Anyway i have a question. how meny kits had to die to give Pammela Anderson her figure?answers to the nearest thousand please! LOL…Gregers
Thanks Aces High for the lego memory. My friend and I built everything from Civil War ironclads and forts to Japanese aircraft-carriers. Way to many good times. Side note to Gregers: My Brother-In-Law is in the Air Force and based at Fort Hill, Utah. Just got back from Qatar. My stepson is joining the Air Force ROTC!
Oh man … make me think way back then … almost like history class.
Ancient history.
Even as a child I had an interest in history, so building models became an extension of that. I’d read a book or watch a movie about the Graf Spee … soon I would be building the model. Watched a movie about Douglas Bader … Spitfires were next in line. And then somewhere along the line the modelling took on a whole new life of its’ own, I no longer needed the inspiration of history to build a model. The art of modelling became its’ own inspiration.
As far back as I can remember, I always had a wooden model of the Santa Maria in my bedroom. Then, my father bought me an F-111 Aardvark for my birthday when I was 7, and we took the weekend together and built it. I’ve been hooked ever since.
It is difficult for me say for sure, but I think the seed was planted when I was a very small child. One fine summer day, way back in 1939, my dad took me to the New York Worlds Fair. One of the few things that I remember was the U.S. Army Air Corps exhibit. There were at least two multi-engine bombers and several fighter planes, all in polished aluminum and having uniformed dummies sitting in the cockpits and gun positions.[:p] WOW!
I’ve been “airplane crazy” ever since.[:o)] It wasn’t long after that, four of five years maybe, that I started making airplane models. This is when all you got in a kit was some blocks of balsa with the shape printed on one side. You had to carve, sand, glue, and paint these things if they ever got them to look like anything. I didn’t care, just as long as it looked like a reasonable facsimile of an airplane. What could be better than watching them dog-fight while hanging on a string from my bedroom ceiling![:D]
Off and on, I’ve been building ever since.
Pete
It was the best way to get the neatest and most accurate toys to play with as a kid. Tank battles, platoon against platoon, waving an airplane around, pretending to fly. Other interests took me away. When I got out of the service, I had little money and time to kill until I started working. A Revell F4F and 2 weeks before work got me modeling again.
Building legos as a wee one, a love of history (instilled by dad), and a gift of a model (again from dad) - and it was all downhill from there!
Whaz up,
My dad was the one who got me into this awesome hobby when i just 7yrs old and its interesting because thats when he began to build. I guess you have to start them young[:p].
Listening to my dads stories when he was stationed at NATC Pax River MD and being around all the a/c also got my juices goin for the love of aviation.
Till this day I have the kit that my dad and I built together almost 20yrs ago hanging in my good ol room. Its the MPC 1/72 C-130.
WOW how time flies…!!! Its only going to get better[:)]
Flaps up,Mike
I remember always loving to play with LEGO - building and creating…with my LEGO I could make ANYTHING I wanted to - the only limit was my imagination - didn’t matter if it really didn’t look right or have the right curves - it looked right in my mind’s eye.
But one of my mother’s boyfriend’s (Mom and Dad got divorced when I was very young) got me a three kit box of tiny little ship models - the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, I think to keep me busy and keep me out of their hair [:0]- (fair enough, really).
I must have been 4 or 5.
Ever since (35 years worth) I’ve been hooked and can’t give it away - the actions of inspection of the kit - assessing what’s bad, deciding what needs to be changed, paint scheme, and every other thing about building has always thrilled me.
I guess it’s the act of creativity I find so enthralling - maybe it’s always the journey I like, not as such the destination that captured me. I always loved looking at all the bits, and knowing that with some manipulation and some glue, this jumble of unidentifiable bits would end up turning into an F-4 or a Jaguar XK-E.
Anyway, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it…
Cheers,
LeeTree[:D]
To Butz:
With Father’s Day being tomorrow, that was a nice touch…a little ironic. Hopefully you can pass the torch someday to your child. I have 3 kids and they sometimes enjoy modeling with me.
Few books about bombers’ raids over Europe during WW II - I was about 10 years old and this time I was a big fond of bombers (specially Wellingtons) - I was dreaming about plastic model of Wellington, but I’ve never got one - to be honest now I have an old Matchbox kit waiting for it’s turn - maybe one day - but now I prefer fast fighters than bombers ! From the other hand it was my father who teach me making models - he prefered paper ones, but that’s him, who made first plastic planes for me! Regards ! Aleksander
Well, I’ve looked at the tigerman letter, and I feel sad a little. My son (for two days 18 years old) are not interested in modeling at all. Of course, when he was 10 or 12, he made few palstic models but after that it was the computer which took place of modeling. And so it is till today … May be my grandson ? Aleksander
Aleksander don’t feel so bad, my boys are both heavily into the computer and especially computer games. They don’t have nearly the passion that I have modelling. Times have changed since you and I were kids and todays Y generation. Perhaps one day our grandkids will carry the torch for modelling. We can only hope.
MY DAD…when i was seven years old my cad came home from duty.[RAF.] with a kit of the QE2…by airfix…i was a kind of child prodigy…[too clever for own good].
and he thought he would see how i got on with it… i had it finished and painted in a week…and i used none of the tools we get today…just a toothpick and a tube of poly cement…[SNIFFLE] those were the days…i think that my next kit he bought for me was the airfix…Scharnhorst…i been hooked ever since
It was learn to walk, talk, glue aeroplanes together… For as long as I can remember, which (not counting saturday night, which was a blur) is at least 22 years ago. I’m 25 now…
Three uncles got me interested in WWII and flying - one was a bommbadier on a B-24, one was a B-17 instructor, one was a chief aircraft mechanic on the Enterprize. My 1st model was an F-80 Shooting Star. I was probably 6 or 7? It was wood except for the cockpit, eight pieces total, if I remember correctly. I logged a 1,000 hours flying that thing around the house. I built airplanes, ships and cars until I was about 12. Then girls and cars (1:1 scale) became the priority.
I got interested in modeling again after almost 50 years when I decided to do some research on my uncle’s B-24 - after 9-11. His plane crashed on 09-11-44. Then I started thinking about recreating it. I built a 1/48 B-25J and a 1/48 B-24D over the winter to see if I still had the skills. Boy, has the hobby changed since the days of glue em, decal em. play with em… So’s my eye sight! But, I’m going to give my uncle’s B-24 a shot.
Jim
PS: I forgot about the glue smudges, frosted canopies, glue on my blue jeans… Thankfully, superglue had not been invented yet!
My uncle bought me my first model when I was about 10 yrs old. A 1964 Chevy Impala. I remember it was molded in white plastic, and that’s just how it went together. No paint, but plenty of glue smudges from my fingers all over it. That was it, I was hooked. After that, my interest went heavily towards WW II ships and aircraft. 36 years later, I now airbrush my models and try and keep the glue smudges to a minimum. 
when i was about 4 or 5 i used to holiday in sydney(australia)and my mums best friend took me the city to visit ahobby shop called hobbyco.it contained everything a young boy could ever hope for.it had two levels and downstairs contained some of the best dioramas a little fella could ever feast his eyes on.to me it was another world.the shop still exsists and the next time i am in sydney i will make a pilgrimage there.