burn out

Sci-fi.

I'm a kid (well, 16), but you can't go wrong with science fiction. There's so much to do. And plus, you'll be wishing you were back to building the same-old stuff after some limited-run sci-fi kits...

It happens to everyone. Happens to me every spring. Weather changes take me away from the bench and outside and I can't get motivated to model at all.
The desire usually comes back in the fall and I fall right back into it again. For those times I can't seem to get going I'll pull up the History channel or get out the war documentary DVDs and watch. Before long I usually feel the connection return again.
I imagine everyone is different and builds for different reasons but I'll tell ya mine.
My one true love is WWII aviation and has been since I was a young kid. Through modeling the a/c involved I feel a connection to the time, men, and machines that I'd otherwise never experience and getting in the zone with a warbird in plastic kinda takes me back to that time in my own mind.
So when I feel disconnected from the subject/hobby a healthy dose of video usually will give me that feeling that keeps me modeling well into the wee hours.
If you are in a funk try to remember what made you want to model the subject to start with and revisit whatever it was. It may well help. What ever you do, if you don't feel the desire don't force yourself. You'll get impatient, frustrated, cut corners and get even further away from what enjoyment you once got from the hobby.

Don't force it...

Try a genre that you've never built before. Or try a different scale. Go buy a an old Revell or Monogram kit that you did when you were young and just slap it together like you did back then. Or just back away from it for a while and see if the jones hits you again later on. It is just a hobby afterall so it's not like it's something you HAVE to do.

Could be a condition called "Low T". Lots of men our age get it. See your doctor, or visit www.isitlowt.com.

(Couldn't resist. They play the commercial non-stop on cable.)

After a particularly nasty armor build, I too got burnt out for a while so I switched to building some aircraft.  As others have noted, maybe you just need to switch genres for a while to reignite your interest.

I was doing well, completed a few and was speedily completing an "easy build". Ran into a few problems, got sidelined on some life's issues, and the bench has collected dust. Didn't stop me from adding some kits to the stash, but I had high hopes of denting it. I hope to get back to the bench next week and hopefully complete that PITA, so i can start on something new.

Step away. Leave it alone. Go do something else that interests you. Tackle some of those other chores you've been putting off for some time. Go visit some museums and other places that can serve as inspiration to renew your interest in building subjects again. But if you need to...just step away for a while. You'll know when you're ready to return.

Thanks for the advice. I have an aircraft carrier model of the U.S.S Enterprise in 1/350 scale by Tamiya. This will be a whole new area for me but I find the challenge to do something totally different refreshing. Thanks my friend. Have a great day  : thumper

I never burned out, I just didn't get a chance to get back to the bench for ten years... Kept reading the magazines though, plus I got into painting skins for aircraft in Microsoft's Combat Flight Simulator II... That rocked, and I got to "fly" my models after I painted & weathered them... Plus, All I needed to take with me on the "road" was the game disc and the lap-top.. No kits, brushes, thinners, nada..

My Coral Sea-era Dirty Wildcat:

And my SBD:

Now that I'm back at the workbench though, and retired,  I build aircraft, armor, figures, and some Sci-Fi, and I only do diormas, so I don't really get stuck in ONE genre at all... I'm a "military modeler", rather than just one area or another.. Not at all uncommon for me to have armor and aircraft on the same diorama... If I don't feel up to taking on a tank or plane, I'll build a shed or a bombed-out house or something, since I'll be using materials of all kinds then..

But, other times I'm just not in the mood to do a kit, so I open one and just do a cockpit, engine, or a figure.... 'Course, that's why I have 25 or so WIPs, lol...

Fortunatly,hasn,t happened yet,usually if a couple days pass where i'm too busy to build,I can't wait to get back.

Find something else you have to do, or are supposed to be doing at any given time.

I know for me that makes the urge to work on the models almost uncontrollable.

Agree with cwalker....  try something totally out of your comfort zone. I just finished a 9 month intense (but fun) build and needed to let my brain chill a bit. I went to my stash and pulled out an old Matchbox 72nd scale Ju 188. A true piece of crap....  But very few parts and I am going straight out of the box.

I'm just going to build it cleanly and give it a nice paint job. Not worrying about adding much of anything to juice it up.

This type of no-brainer project usually will get me readied to tackle a more involved project.

Good luck thumper.....   hope you get over the funk

Hans von Hammer

My Coral Sea-era Dirty Wildcat:

And my SBD:

 

Burn out happens to the best of us and affects modelers who concentrate on particular subjects the quickest. Stacking kits next to the workbench and prioritizing can make matters worse.  When acquiring kits, you get motivated and make plans to do this one, and then this one, and so on...  Sometimes after an intense build, that stack of kits in queue can make you feel like an assembly worker at the Ford plant.  Switching it up can do wonders when you get this feeling.  I once completed two aircraft back to back with three more awaiting. The last thing I wanted to do at that time was open the next box.  

I took a few weeks off from modeling to do research work and during a visit to the LHS, I saw a real neat NASCAR model with a real unique paint job.  This kit was what the doctor ordered for my burnout.  Putting a car together presented different challenges, kept my skills sharp, and the painting was intense but different compared to the aircraft I just built.

Currently, I flip-flop between my mostly exclusive USMC aircraft queue of kits and my model railroad.  When I get tired of one, I switch to the other.  Laying track or modeling a building requires skill and working with my hands but is different then worrying about seems and photo-etch parts.  

Another activity that helped me in the past was displays.  Before I had the room for my model trains, I would work on my scenery skills by creating dioramas and/or elaborate display bases.  If I got sick of working on kits, I would pull a completed model off the shelf and either create a nice base or create a scene. 

Modeling the same type of subject can be like planting the same crop on the same piece of land year after year; you'll eventually "burn out" the soil.

It's hapenned to me and probably to most modelers at some time but the interest eventually returns. I  Recently I started competing at shows so my interest has peaked, specially after winning trophies.

I go through it after every build gets completed. I'll him and haw, sitting in front of the stash for a few days, waiting for something to "pop". Eventually, I'll grab one that I'm mildly interested in, and force myself into it. 10 minutes after starting, just try to get me away from it!!! It has helped that I have been doing commission work. The next subject is already chosen and there's a paycheck at the end!!!!!  I love it!!!

Keep perusing the forum here, something is bound to be inspiring!

Manstein's revenge

Hans von Hammer:

My Coral Sea-era Dirty Wildcat:

And my SBD:

 

 

Notice in both pics Hammer is about to get shot down...

Awwww, many beat me to it! lol

i'm 46 and I get this too sometimes.  Then I put in a war movie or sci-fi DVD.  It gets me primed for that new kit or one that's been sitting on my "on-hold" shelf.  If that doesn't work, I just try and do something completely different from my normal kits.  SciFi kits are  so pricey now that I can only do the least expensive ones, and then only occasionally, unless I get really really lucky on eBay (it does happen sometimes like when I got an open box Morpheus C57D from forbidden planet for $25 including shipping.).  Doing something different helps break it up a bit and reset the mental gears for me.  Failing that, I put on my collection of Mylene Farmer MP3 tunes and play Dungeon Siege II on the PC until I am in the mood again.

thumper

How do some of you guys handle model burn out or loss of intrest. at 62 yrs old been modeling most of my life and yet sometime i can sit at my work bench and just cannot work up interest to start anything in my stash and worse have several unfinished models that i have also lost interest in even finishing. Hope this is not a sign of ageing.     thumper

Notice in both pics Hammer is about to get shot down...

But I looked good doing it...

Actually, I'm only losing in the Wildcat... I'm flying the Zeke in other one, and the SBD's gunner is dead...  All the Dauntless pilot could do was fly straight & level (He was on fire a couple minutes earlier)... I ended up letting him go..  You know... The ol', "I pulled up alongside him, shook my head, and saluted" scenario...

I was outta ammo anyway...

Hans von Hammer

I was outta ammo anyway...

"Pity stayed his hand.  (Pity I've run out of bullets.)"

Hello Thumper:

Everytime my knee tells me it's hurtin', I know that's a sign of aging.

I burned outa' cycling almost 15 years ago, when Lance was blasting the Tour 'Day France.

The nice thing about this sport is that I can burn out: of money: of subjects: of interest: but most of that is not physical.

I would still be riding my bike but I can't. I find that sometimes I can't build my kits because all kinds of life's pressures just crush my daily 'waht I really want to do today.'

You wouldn't be here expressing your reality if you didn't love building.

As some of our associates have expressed, give it a rest, after all it is a lot of work.

Please don't feel that just because you can't build right now that you are in a crisis and have to sell off everything you've stashed.

Look, put it in a will to give away, but keep your stuff for your own enjoyment for when the feeling comes back pal, because it always happens. You will rebound.

Yeah, we lose a lot of folks, or some other strife hits (difficult times). And we take it on the chin. But you deserve the happiness this hobby gives, and every time you pick up your tools and build Thumper, you make the world a better place for showing others your memories and expressions - I'm serious about this.

The 20'th was one of the hardest fought centuries in the history of mankind. We honour it by rebuilding it, one kit at a time.

There's nothing wrong with you for being battle weary man. Take it easy. Day follows night.

A couple of years ago I achieved my all time dream: there's no way I can build all of those kits.

That's just the way I want it to be.

padakr

Hans von Hammer:

I was outta ammo anyway...

 

"Pity stayed his hand.  (Pity I've run out of bullets.)"

Heh, BOTR..

Had I been flying as my "usual" German persona, then it would have been chivalry, lol...

Hans von Hammer

Notice in both pics Hammer is about to get shot down...

But I looked good doing it...

Actually, I'm only losing in the Wildcat... I'm flying the Zeke in other one, and the SBD's gunner is dead...  All the Dauntless pilot could do was fly straight & level (He was on fire a couple minutes earlier)... I ended up letting him go..  You know... The ol', "I pulled up alongside him, shook my head, and saluted" scenario...

I was outta ammo anyway...

Only when I "fly Ivan"...  There IS a "Kamikaze" download for AI Japanese pilots though, and they'll dive right onto ships that are the designated targets of the mission..

If I ram, I explode, he bails out.. Bug in the game, I think... There's also a "Collision Bubble" that varies from plane to plane to plane in which you can collide from even as much as 16 feet away...  Done that in a LOT of head-on passes...

In this fight, I went vertical with a P-39 (I'm flying a Tony) and got within 8 yards of his belly without colliding. (That green bar there is my canopy frame).  He stalled out before I did (but I was running low on energy too, at 157 knots), did a Hammer-head turn (Love that name), and nailed him in the dive... He couldn't accelerate away from the Ki-61's DB 601 because of the stall leaving him with zero airspeed after the nose pitched over... The Tony gets going downhill pretty fast...

The exterior view:

The "45" here is "distance" from the screen to the P-39, not from my Tony..

If I may offer my observations:

1. Don't force it, it's a hobby, not a job.  If you don't feel like building something right now, do something else.
2. The point about modelers who concentrate on one subject is a good one--it is possible to get tired of building the same thing, over and over.  Mix it up, even if you go across the "classic" divisions of airplanes-cars-ships-figures-etc, etc.  I believe that a good modeler can turn his hand to any subject, actually.  Right now, I have 2 P-51s in progress, 2 ships in 1/700, Tom Daniel's Red Baron, and a benchful of toy soldiers.  And if I don't feel like working on any of those, I do something else, read a book, watch a movie, go outside, have a beer.
3. Join a group build.  Building with others offers mutual motiviation.
4. Join a club, for the same reason as #3.  I often get fired up and have a modeling burst, after our meetings, and I often put in extra effort to finish something and show it at the meeting
5. Go to modeling shows.  You don't have to compete--I don't--but again, mutual motivation, and face-to-face contact--these things can re-kindle your interest to build. 

Best regards,

Brad

i agree with all the points made...

don't force it..

try another scale or genre..

build outa do box... dont get sucked into fixing all the errors.. just built it.. it will come..