Mobydick surfaces! A new member intro.
Greetings to all my fellow modelers from new member Mobydick. It's an honor to be associated with those who have produced the outstanding work that I've seen on this website.
I recently returned to modeling about a year and a half ago after an absence
of about 15 years during which I was either too busy with work or school to indulge. It's really enriched my life and I've been a much happier person since
coming back to the model scene. My return was prompted by a bad accident (got hit by a car, right leg shattered at the knee) after which I was either on my butt or on my back for 6 months and off work for a year. I built about 30 models
in the next 18 months, mostly aircraft, WWII to the present. I sold all of these before I moved to Washington state from California & am now in the process of
rebuilding them plus alot of others I've always wanted to tackle. I've currently got
over 60 kits stacked up on my laundry room shelves (part of the payback from my accident settlement).
My interest in aircraft is really based on 2 different levels. First, I've always thought that airplanes are, in & of themselves, objects of great beauty. When I look at a P-51 I almost get the same thrill as when I see a 38-24-36 Playboy centerfold! I'll bet some of you do too. But aircraft models are for me also important historical artifacts of an unprecedented era of violence by states upon
individuals which we are still struggling to understand. Airplanes were often the
primary weapons in this last century of war & destruction. The historical value,
then, is a large part of my fascination with these war machines.
As far as my modeling skills & preferences are concerned, I'm not obsessed
with building 100% historically accurate models. 90 or 95% accurate is good enough for me. As long as one can recognize the thing for what it represents,
I have no problem with that. Being a lifelong neat freak, I've also never gotten
much at all into weathering (although I may venture there with the help of the Fine Scale Community). The factory fresh look has always appealed to me, &
I've always been afraid of the prospect of ruining 20 or 30 hours of work in a ham handed weathering attempt. I would describe my modeling as very middle
of the road, play-it-safe, nothing too ambitious. I model straight out of the box, no
conversions or added styrene, etc. I hope there's a place on this website for the
more pedestrian modeler such as myself. But I also hope to upgrade my skills
quite a bit your guys' help, so bear with me. Maybe I'll summon up the guts to
display some photos of my work. For what I attempt to do, I'd say I'm not bad.
Well, thanks for listening to my verbose introduction. Hope to meet each of you later on. Moby.