Hello! I live in Tennessee. About a month ago my wife wanted to go to hobby lobby and I was with her when we passed by an aisle of scale models... I hadn't thought about modeling in years, but I used to do some of the very easy models marketed to kids when I was around 10 (I'm 27 now). I lingered there and looked around just killing time while she looked at flowers or sparkles or some other whatnot they sell there.
I am a big fan of WWII history and the AFVs from that era particularly interested me. We went on home but I kept thinking about those models and how I used to enjoy making the easier ones when I was young, and last week I'd had enough and went and bought some supplies and a Tamiya 1/35 Panther Ausf. A. Its about halfway put together and, there have been a few mistakes, but overall its coming together much better than I thought it would for a first try, more importantly I'm having a great time working with it. Since its been so long, and the only other models I did were very simple, I consider myself a stark newbie.
I am looking forward to/dreading painting the model. I now realize that for a really good paint job I should have painted some of the parts before assembling them, but this is just a first try and I dont expect the paint job to be very good. My birthday is next month and I already told my wife I want an airbrush :)
My primary interest is in WWII AFVs, particularly German made ones, though the others are interesting as well. I also have been browsing the dioramas and think that would be a lot of fun, but don't feel like I'm ready to tackle something that ambitious yet. However, I would like to once I have a few models under my belt.