Modeler's Anxiety?

Well!  I'm a resurected modeler too and I feel that way about anytime during the process.  I'm waiting to receive my 1/32 F/A-18 Hornet kit from Academy and I'm anxious about painting it.  I have no experience in airbrushing, I have never filled any gap, never used wet sanding method.  So there is a chance of screwing it up.  But I think that if I take the time to do it and stick to that forum, which is a wonderfull source of information, It'll be OK.

Give you a good kick in the @£¤±%& and do it.

Hehehehe.......

I felt that anxiety..... worried I'd mess something up. In my first kit in 23 years, I've:

- Filled gaps that shouldn't have been filled
- Left "glue fingerprints" in places
- Over sanded panel lines and small details
- Glued a wheel well door on wrong
- Slapped on enough paint to make the wings look like they have a truck-bed liner on them
- Made a fairly good mess of a sludge job
- I haven't even put on the decals

So what is my solution?

Friday, I went out and bought two more kits! Best way to deal with fears and anxietys is to face them! Make your local hobby shop owner happy- buy more kits and work through the pain. ;-)

I've got that right now, totally forgot to put in the rubber prop holders on my Mozzie and glued up the propeller REAL good. Sigh. I haven't even looked at my pile of models since.

I'm also planning to move my modeling bench, but am also suffering from lassitude as it will end up (no doubt!) being a huge project that sucks up my modeling budget for the next month or two.

Bgrigg wrote:

I'm also planning to move my modeling bench, but am also suffering from lassitude as it will end up (no doubt!) being a huge project that sucks up my modeling budget for the next month or two.

I've given up going out for lunch, and I'm brown bagging it. Shifting the "savings" into modeling....... ;-)

I also utilize the "dribble" spending method. I ask the wife "Honey, do you need anything from the store?" A quick trip to Walmart (and oh yeah the LHS) later, I have a bag of stuff for the wife and..... what's that? Oh, just a bottle of paint and a brush. Nothing really..... LOL

So, spend the lunch money on mid-ticket items, dribble out the little stuff, blow the big budget on the rest.

I'm building up a case that the wife NEEDS a hobby room to do sewing, crafts, etc. And as long as we're doing that, maybe a wee bit o' space fer me models......

I'm *positive* she's not on to me.

this is common for me.  but then again it is well deserved.  i tend to screw up royally when things are going good.

 

 

 

joe

fightnjoe wrote:

this is common for me.  but then again it is well deserved.  i tend to screw up royally when things are going good.

No operational plan, whether on the battlefield or at the modeling bench, survives contact with reality.

Triarius wrote:

Anyone else suffer from Modeler's Anxiety—you get close to finished, and are reluctant to take the next step because things are going so well you are afraid you'll ruin it? Or is this just an affliction of the resurrected modeler?

You know, I had it worse. For a while, I wouldn't start a kit because I was afraid I'd screw it up.

Now my biggest problem is getting motivated to finish a kit. It's not that I don't want to build, its just hard to have the energy. I'm in grad school part time, I work full time, I've been doing a number of short (2 week to a month) home renovation projects, I study aikido (a Japanese martial art -- more than a hobby), and I'm a new dad. I keep telling myself that I'll work on my model in the evening, but by the time the evening rolls around, I often don't have the energy.

Once I actually sit down to build, though, I enjoy it -- even if I mess something up. For me, then, I just need to sit down and build. Staying off the computer helps too.

As for being afraid of messing up? I just accept that I will, and take comfort in the fact that my current model looks better than my last.

Regards,

I do when I get to the weathering stage, sometimes the camo, which I feel usually makes or breaks the build. Most of my weathering is rather subtle anyway, but I try to get rid of that "factory fresh" look.

always.  that's why i have so many unfinished builds...  = ( and it's always the painting part. 

Jon, there's a difference between fear and anxiety. My current (Ha!) project "Test Bed" has been in progress for most of the last twenty (20, two zero) years. It's how I've kept my hand in while  in Drew's situation. I've used it to try various and sundry techniques I've read about in FSM or thought up on my own in the last two decades. The problem is, everything either worked, or, if not, I figured out how to "fix" it. The kit doesn't look half bad, and I'd like to keep it that way. For the last twenty years, it's almost the only kit I've touched.

Drew, you are absolutely correct. The computer is the greatest time- eating device ever created!

Tigerman, that's exactly where I am—and trying yet another technique for the first time.

Ryan, I agree. But as Jon said, the best cure is to leap right in…never mind the crocodiles grinning at you…

Bill, my friend, I've done that three times since moving into this house. I can't offer you words of comfort—every  time I proved your predilections correct. One piece of advice: once you start the move, let nothing stop you or even interrupt, or it will get really discouraging.

Sorry to hear about the Mozzie, too.

Well guys, thanks for letting me know I'm not alone.

Into the Shadow, with teeth bared,
to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the last day! —Robert Jordan

…er…or something like that.

That's been the biggest bane of my existence as a modeler!  I want to try something new, but worry that I'll royally mess up the entire build if it goes sideways on me.  There are several kits sitting in various stages of completion on or near my desk that are waiting for me to just stop putting it off and do it! (whatever the it may be, weathering, scratch building some part or mod, the usual) 

It's nice to know I'm not alone in this.

in my case it may be more frustration than anxiety i think

i get so P/O at a model that i just glue it together leave the seams

if the part don't fit just glue it on the way it sits

I'm glad to know I'm not the only one My father asked me the other day when I was going to finish one that has been sitting almost done for sometime, and I replied "I don't know" then he asked why not which led me to say " I have NO idea???"

When I'm getting close to finished with a model I want it done, so I quickly do the last items and it gets screwed up.
I need more patience, which is not easy with a stressful environment (Tokyo, 35 million people to battle with all day), wife and kid and only a few hours after work until it's bedtime.
I'm tired...........

/\/\ Bah, what are you complaining about. You're in Japan. The holy grail for modellers.

A modeler in Japan with no time to build models is as being a 60 years old man at the playboy mansion without Viagra.

Where I have a problem with anxiety regarding modeling is the painting. I have no problem starting a kit, or building it, or finishing up the last bits like decaling and dull coating, but when it gets to the painting stage I sometimes freeze up. Funny thing is, painting isn't that bad for me really, unless it requires mottleing or a really complex camouflage pattern. I am really starting to think that maybe I just don't enjoy painting as much as I do the actual building and decaling part. I don't know. Anyway I just push on through it or start a new kit and put the other in the "I'll just finish that later" stack.