From the day my father brought home 3 model kits for me when I was around 8 or 9 (I remember the kits but not the occasion), I was hooked. I built models all through college, and after I got married, up until a year after my daughter was born (1993). I had set my old bedroom up as a shop of sorts - even built a small table (rickety) to mount my hi-intensity lamp/magnifier and hold supplies. Well, that room went to my daughter and there was nowhere else to build, and I didn't want the paint, thinner and whatnot fumes to permeate the house where small children were trying to breathe. So I stopped building until I could set up a space in the unfinished cellar. But I spent my time with the kids rather than puttering around down in the cellar, so it never got done.
I intended to take up modeling again, but then my eyesight started to go south - pretty rapidly, from what I could tell. Now I need glasses just to make sure I'm hitting the right keys on the keyboard. So I figured I'd never be able to build again, with around 100 unbuilt kits down in the cellar waiting for me. Every time he paid us a visit, the plumber made offers to buy as many of the kits as I was willing to sell, but I held on to them stubbornly. Just about a month ago, though, I decided to hell with giving up - I felt like building a model! After all, what's the worst that can happen? It looks like garbage when I'm done? That wouldn't be anything new to me. ![Big Smile [:D]](/emoticons/icon_smile_big.gif)
Now my only problem is deciding which kit to throw to the wolves, so to speak - I know I need to work out the kinks before I can come up with anything half-decent, and that means sacrificing at least a few kits to the gods of trial-and-error.
I have a craving to build a bunch of airplane kits from the mid-to-late 1930s - I've always loved the color schemes of the Naval aircraft of that era. But that's a tall order, so I'll start off, I think, with a Monogram 1/48 Wildcat. I don't have to worry about too much detail, since there isn't any; I can practice puttying and sanding, since I don't want to use the drop tanks - I'll have to fill in the holes in the wing. And if I remember correctly, the folding wings don't exactly perform as intended, so I might just glue them in place and fill the gaps. Especially since I'd rather do a F4F-3 with pre-war colors, and the kit is obviously a F4F-4 with the folding wings. Then I can worry about decals - I'll be doing research on what decal manufacturers are out there and which are the better ones - I never in my life used anything other than kit-provided decals in the past.
I've looked through some of the forums here and I see there's a lot of information available to me, but I'm sure I will still be asking a lot of noobish questions. Thanks to FineScale Modeler for their excellent magazine (I'll be subscribing again very shortly - yay!) and especially these excellent forums - I wish they'd have been around back when I was building models last time!
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Almost forgot, I was so busy spouting off.....back in my previous modeling life I was heavily into 1/700 Waterline kits (most of the stock I have in the cellar is 1/700). I also have a number of 1/35 armor (WW2) kits and various scales of aircraft (also WW2). I've always been interested in WW2 - my father served in the Army Air Corps in WW2 as a B-29 navigation instructor, so I had plenty of inspiration, if you will. Over the course of my life I've built hundreds of kits, but sadly only a handful have survived - currently in the attic hidden under a substantial coat of dust. I had a few kits on a shelf or two in the house, but every time my wife would dust, parts would mysteriously detach. The last straw was when the entire superstructure of a Japanese cruiser 'fell off' - I surrendered and put the (few) survivors back in the attic.