How it all started

model maker jnr

ANOTHER TANK BITES THE DUST
Joined
Mar 7, 2013
Messages
250
Who or what got you guys into modeling
If you are reading this and you got someone into modeling you should feel proud 8)
 
I got into modeling because it allows me the ability to create objects that I highly covet and I really enjoy working with my hands, building things, painting, sculpting...Modeling encompasses all of those things. I love the since of accomplishment I feel when I complete a project, I like being productive. Modeling allows me to have miniature versions of objects that I could never afford the real version of. If I had the money for a full size replica of an X-Wing I would buy it, but I dont, so I build a miniature of one instead, the next best thing. So in that regard, I got into modelling because it fulfills my needs as a collector as well as artistic expression.

Also I happened to discover Scott's show on youtube when he first started making it I think it was early 2009 or late 2008, and that was instrumental in giving me the inspiration to just jump into the hobby. I seriously thought, "this guy is having so much fun, I have to get into this" I have not looked back since
 
I got into models when I was about 5, and because my Dad built them as well. He stopped building them (probably long before he introduced me to them), and I ended up with his modest stash, some of which I still have some today. Not many complete kits, I think just a truck and a trailer somewhere, but was a great push into the hobby.

Dad of course only built cars and trucks, which is what I started out building. I then found my way to aircraft, had a ceiling covered with them....my own little air battle going on above me. Then ventured into the armor realm.

Now I build pretty much everything, which would be why my own stash has taken on a life of itself!
 
My dad got me into it with aircraft and cars. Looked into armour in the mid 80s and kept on building until about 10 years ago when life got busy. Now back into it.

My son is kinda interested in it. He'll come into the man cave and watch me for a bit and ask some questions.

Time will tell if he takes up the hobby.

Regards
 
My Dad was into model railroading. We had a huge layout in the basement that he was always adding to.
I never really caught the RR bug. I remember him and I building a large balsa glider of a Vulcan Bomber, I think it was one of the Easymodel kits. And I remember as a kid building aircraft and helicopter plastic kits. I sort of kept up with the balsa kits. Built lot of gliders and rubber power, then advanced to control line. By high school, had pretty much stopped building.
After college and started working, the model bug hit again, this time RC. All my aircraft were balsa builds. never got into the fiberglass and ARF kits. I liked building from scratch. Did this for quite a few years, but it eventually just got too expensive to put an aircraft into the air and gave it up. In the intervening years did some RC Cars and boats, along with plastic armor, cars and aircraft, but not as a full time hobby. In 2004 I was the victim of a motor vehicle accident, which left me partially crippled and out of a career.
While convalescing and with funds short, had to take up something to keep my mind and hands active. I stumbled upon Card Modeling. Upon investigation found lots of models online for free, which at the time was good. Started with the simple stuff and slowly worked my way up as my skills progressed. I really enjoyed it.
Now retired I'm full time modelling along with some other interests. Mostly with the Card Models but do want to do some plastic again, there are a couple of kits that have been in my stash for quite a while.

Jim
 
My dad got me into it with a couple of 1/72 warbirds, and SEVERAL tries at the old AMT Enterprise back in the early 70s.
Been building off and on ever since.

It was Scott's Red 6, and a couple of other video builds that got me to start the YouTube thing
 
Much the same as the rest of you fella's. Built my first plane model round the age of 7 or 8
which my dad got me. Then got into model railroading. Built a couple of trucks and ships,
around 13 to 15 years old. This was about the same time I started weathering dad's railroad
rolling stock. ;D Got intrigued by WW2 and started building armour kits. Had somewhat
of an hiatus from modelling for life reason's. Now Iam addicted all over again :)
 
My Brother used to make them when i was young, he doesnt do it any more tough which is a shame because he was good from what i remember.

and Ken Abrams vids got me back into the hobby a few years back,
 
Good to hear everyones background.

I always enjoyed pulling toys apart and reassembling when I was a kid but my first model kit was in primary school (about 8 years old) through some 'hobby/craft' thing (don't remember detials)
After that it was on and off till the distractions of my teenage years kicked in.
Kinda rekindled again in my late 20's but back into it full steam in the last few years.
Hoping and trying to spread the word to whoever I can about the great hobby and communities.

Having workmates and friends into the hobby is a help, the global market of kits and related goodies is great and without doubt forums like SMA and videos from guys like Scott, Grendels, Quaralane and so many others have really kept the motivation and accesability of the hobby going strong this time around.
 
Same as you guys, started around 5 when my dad would buy me models. Loved macross, dorvack and WW2 airplanes as a kid.

I think it's a classic father-son hobby.
 
a trip to london hamleys toy store..and a way to stop me going out and spending all my money on clubbing
 
I got started as a kid, too. I was 6 when an uncle gave me a Model T kit--I remember it as Lindberg, but that might not be correct. My parents encouraged me to build models, and I built a lot of WWII subjects--ships, planes and armor, and sci-fi, following my interests. I also had a couple of HO train sets. All of that got to the point where I had a 4'x8' wargame of the Battle of Waterloo, with Airfix figures, by the time I was in high school. And I had just started to experiment with casting, by the time I went off to college and left the hobby behind.

A couple years later, living in Munich, I found a set of homecast German toy soldiers at a flea market, and brought them home. I started reading up on toy soldiers, took up casting again, joined a club, and then our club merged with the local IPMS club, and I came full circle and took up scale modeling again. So I do both.
 
my dad was a keen builder and i was always fascinated with it. when i was old enough he let me build them with him manly 1.72 aircraft we would build and paint them in a few hour and then hang them up on the washing line and shot them with his air rifle. :) until i started to get quite good at them and didnt want to shot them to bits
 
I remember my very first kit vividly, it was a three wheeled atv with a rider, and the wheels where ob longed shaped to give it the look of movement in a cartoonish style, and it snapped into a small base plate, that gave it the overall appearance of the rider lifting the front wheel, like it was at the start of a jump or such. It was a simple snap kit, but to a five year old, it was very very cool. Probably had about a dozen pieces or so. But spending six months in a hospital, that is one of the few memories I have from that time. Well one of the few I would wish to keep, there is a few I wouldn't mind losing, but that is a discussion for another time.

My next modeling memory came along about, three years later or so, the apartment we used to live in, there was a family down the hall, and they had a couple of older boys, about 10 - 12 years my senior, one of them was into the plastic kits of the day. He would of just been starting into university, the one summer I was staying with his mom.

He came home one day, and saw me admiring his stash in his bedroom, looking at all the marvelous boxes and planes hanging from the ceiling and such. And he saw me in there admiring (maybe even coveting :) ) his collection. Anyways a short dialogue ensued, as he ushered me out of his room with the promise to get a kit and teach me how to build it.

Well fast forward a few days, he came back to moms place, and had a 1/72 B-29 kit for me. I was more then over excited. We built that bugger up, didn't paint it as it was already in silver styrene and to a young kid already looked amazing, slapped the decals on, and it hung from my ceiling for years.

That was it I was hooked, when I was a kid you could buy kits anywhere, even the corner store, and while other kids where playing with hot wheels, I was always the one building kits, I would sit outside in the summer on the grass and do them.

Always used way to much glue, what ever I could find for paint, and just squished the parts together until the glue would hold, once built they got added to the collection of army toys and the my divisions grew and grew :) I could line them up for about thirty feet or so, my complete airforce and 1/72 - 1/76 soldiers, tanks jeeps etc. I spent more time playing war games with those things before gaming was "cool" then I did school work (which I guess explains a lot now)

But that was it for me, I was hooked from those first couple of kits, it is with a bit of sadness I will now be packing everything up (temporarily) as my wife just finally last night received her Passport Request from the Visa office in Manila last night ( a sign that the end of our immigration process is near). As we will be starting out from this small one bedroom apartment, and there will not be room for my modeling crap, myself, my wife and her four year old son. So into storage it will go for a few months, until we can get settled, and into a new place that will allow me to start up a new bench.

But I have have a few things to look forward too, my wife and son finally getting to Canada, after two years! Setting up a new dedicated spot for me to work (I am already starting to build a new desk and such for that, to go to what ever new place we decide to set roots into).

And best of all, Finding another B-29 for me, and my son to do together, (well ok maybe two B-29's one for him one for me :) ) and introducing him to the hobby. Building a kit together will be the first real bonding experience, he and I will have together. As he is just about to turn five, he is a bit young to be building anything much on his own, but he is definitely old enough to get bit by the bug.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top