Been making Models, new to FSM

Hey folks.

After a year or two-long hiatus from doing plastic modeling, I got the urge to build another kit after talking with a friend of mine who also used to build plastic models. So I looked up for local hobby shops (I hadn't been to a local hobby shop since one...no, two houses ago!), and my Dad and I drove off on last Sunday and I picked up a Tamiya P-51D 1:48 and the necessary Tamiya Acrylic paints, along with a new hobby knife (seems like the same design as Xacto, but it's Hobbico brand...seems sharp enough to me!).

I got into modeling when I was about nine or ten years old. I was reading a magazine about R/C airplanes and asked my Dad about building one of them. He laughed and told me to start off with something small. A few weeks later he bought me an all-in-one Testors kit with four World War Two fighters in 1:72 scale. Had a lot of fun doing them, and learned a lot of techniques...like patience.

About twenty plastic model kits later, ranging from 1:72 to 1:32 scale, I have completely lost interest in R/C airplanes. I aquired quite a collection of Testors enamels and acrylic paints, some Thinners, and other modeling equipment, but my mom dropped the shoebox that they were in and a lot of stuff got paint on it. Oh well. Gives me an excuse to buy more supplies, eh?

Over time my models have gotten better, but I have trouble with the same sorts of things with all of my models -- decals decay and wither, paint strokes are very visible, I am helpless when parts don't fit perfectly, and I have a very hard time getting nice even lines on final paint finishes. I have picked up a few techniques...tapping on a little charcoal dust around machine gun mounts and exhausts, lightly dabbing a little aluminium paint to show chipping around parts, and using a toothpick to paint those goddam instrument panels. Hopefully I'll be buying an airbrush soon, in time for me to do the final painting of my Tamiya kit the way it should be done, and I'll read up on how to get a nice metallic finish that looks so good on a P-51. Unfortunately my 16-year old budget constraints don't quite give me the means to get a top of the line airbrush and compressor, plus all the paints and sprays I want, but I'll get by. The one great thing about modeling is that once you have the common supplies, you can spend months working on a single kit which costs twenty five dollars. Good entertainment return for your money.

Anyway, I'll be lurking around here to pick up some skills for the model I'm working on. Perhaps I'll even post something, but my messages will be mostly questions at this point. If you want to see some poorly done models, maybe I'll put up some photos of my work as an eleven year old.