Model Builder's A.D.D.

Just look at my signature!

Well, that describes me perfectly. I don't think of it as A.D.D, I call it multi-tasking

Maybe that is why I have thirty kits started and only a few finished. If someone could make a pill, it would add yet another commercial for drugs we really don't need.

I agree with the point about medicinal commercials ;-) But I would like to hear how deep some of us have fell into this and how you changed this if you did. Myself, I had numerous projects going at once until I found out I was being mobilized and deployed overseas. At that point I stopped starting new projects and tried to complete all the then current kits. But even this did not clean up the mess. I still had at least an odd half dozen or more that were put on hold while I was gone. Since I have returned (one year now) I still have not quite yet cleaned up the backlog, (a group build motivated me to finsih one of these) but I did complete a few of the older ones, as well as start AND complete a few new kits.

Guilty as charged!

Oh of course I always had valid reasons. Waiting for the "right" decals, gonna get around to clear coating several projects when all were done, looking for better reference photos for obscure details- whatever.

It took an innocent question from one of my sons," Dad, why don't you finish this one"? I then realized it was the same question I'd asked of my two boys on occassions. Of, course I speculated they had short attention spans, lack of orginazation, shortcomings in devotion. Heck, I was setting the example! I actually dusted off several projects and finally completed them!

Alas, I've done it again. I currently have three ships on the workbench (never mind what's put away from sight) and in all truthfulness I'm only working on one and after that I was planning to start something else?

Oh well, at least at some level I'm making progress?

Pass those "new" pills please!

 

Squiddly 

 

LOL, four in-progress kits. I vowed not to start another until I complete at least two......maybe three. I think we like the build part the best for the most part, wouldn't you say?

So glad it's not just me.  I think I could start a website for completed engines sales.  Beyond that, lots of boxes containing cars in various stages.  I might be the worst off of all the afflicted, I've finished 1 kit (hastily no less, but there are lots of 3-wheeled '67 Comet's out there...maybe I'll put it in the yard for the grass to grow up around) in the last year.

Right now, I've got a NASCAR kit that won't go together, a '71 Mustang that is very close to done, fixing the aforementioned Comet, then a '70 Mustang and a Ferrari F430 my wife convinced me to hold off on and my newly hatched scratch-built bicycle idea.

tigerman wrote:

LOL, four in-progress kits. I vowed not to start another until I complete at least two......maybe three. I think we like the build part the best for the most part, wouldn't you say?

 I think I fall in love with an 'idea' during the planning stages? Make an Evarts class out of a Buckley, equip a Fletcher with a floatplane, replicate a ship that happened to have the family name. So I start out all Gung Ho and accomplish the major modifications then suddenly, somehow become distracted with the next "idea"? I actually became aware of my 'pattern' this time around though. I just moved so it was painfully obvious of this new accumulation in a new space of unfinished projects! I stepped back and decided to focus on something smaller and hopefully stick it through to completion. I'm building a lil subchaser and it's actually in paint and I'm adding deck details before the PE right now, tonite!

 Heck, I purposely chose a 'small' ship, 173' footer, just to see if I might finish something this time? Don't get me wrong, I've finished at least 100 models which were previously on display but now after the move they're most carefully packed away. Yeah, I'm already distracted with other 'plans for projects', but I'm also pretty determined to finish this one since it's the first time I've ever "totally" scratchbuilt a ship- the other reason I chose a small subject. Heck, there's enough ship kits in the closet to form a Task Group but I'm trying to avoid hearing their cries for attention knowing that I'd only be sentencing them to an infinite time in "the shipyard" before they'd ever see launching day!

 Naw, I guess I'm big on the planning and execution of modifications but short on the actual completion? You know if dust would just stop settling on things it wouldn't give away how much time has passed and it would just look as if I was 'highly prolific' on my workbench! That's all I need- a dust proof environment!

 

Hi......my name is Mike and I have Model Builder's A.D.D.

 

my problem is that i like larger models (1/350 ships, 1/35 railway guns) so I run out of room REAL quick. This apartment just ain't big enough.

I had this very condition for a while.  I would build up to a point, then have to wait for either a "good time" to paint/clearcoat, and in the meantime, I'd start another kit and then it was lather, rinse, repeat until I had a goodly collection of partially built kits sitting in their boxes.

Well, now that we're in preparation to move, I've taken a few steps to solve this situation, at least for me:

- No new kit purchases until the stash has been reduced (currently about 30 kits)

- No starting a new kit until the in-progress ones are completed (that's about three right now)

- Took a hard look at a couple of kit-bash/scratchbuild projects that had "died" and salvaged what I could, and tossed the rest...yeah, it was hard, but I had to do it

- Scavanged what I wanted to keep from some of my older/lesser builds (missiles and bombs, stowage on tanks) and sent the rest to the landfill (I kept the sentimental builds and the ones I truly was proud of completing)

None of it was easy, but it makes me feel like I'm getting something done once more.

I get so into the WWII history of the men and the machines that I tend to get excited about a new subject with every new book I read, or every new History or Military channel show I watch.  Hence the 4 billion kits in my stash..

What I've been doing lately is I'll still buy a new kit if I KNOW I want to build it some day.  I've been burned before by deciding to wait to purchase a new kit because I already had so many kits in the stash, only to find the kit out of production when I finally decide to go get it. The Classic Airframes Bf109A is a good example, I'm still kicking myself for missing out on that one.  So now, especially if it's a limited run kit, I will get it NOW. I'll also pick up most of the new Dragon releases as about 80% of them appeal to me, and just add them to the stash for later.  

I used to have a bad problem of having 6 or more partially built kits sort of going at any one time, with each build just languishing.  Now I will work on no more than 2 at a time, and stagger the starting of each one so that when I get towards the finishing stages of say an aircraft (one day prime, next day underside, next day top side, next day camo etc.) then I'll start on another kit do to the build and interior work while waiting for each stage of the other kit to dry and cure. 

I also changed my modeling habits such that even if I only have 15 to 30 minutes I'll just zip downstairs and take care of a couple of things, then get on with my other chores or activities.  Having an indoor spray booth that vents outside is really great for that.  I can whip out a quick spray job in 15 minutes from start to finish now, including clean up.  I used to just wait until I had a several hour block to work on my models, but those are few and far between as we're always so busy with a big family, big house and lots of responsibilities.  Now I'm at the point where I can actually finish one or two builds a month, which is very satisfying. 

Been there myself, in fact I do have a few currently in the works, but I'm beginning to think that I started some of those just for the sake of building something....anything, because I believe the work is more than half the fun. My way out of it was to 'get away from the norm' of what I usually build and find a subject not too far off of my beaten path but new enough to present different challenges than what I'm used to. For the longest time I built WWII aircraft and nothing but, until I got so burned out on it that it lost it's appeal (but I still love lookin' at 'em!). Now I am building aircraft from WWI and it is presenting me with all kinds of new challenges I never would have encountered by building another 109, Mustang, 262, etc. . In fact, I just finished my first kit in almost a year (a Fokker D.VII) and I am well into another WWI bird, which I will see through to the end, simply because for me the finished product now is as appealing as the work involved. I'm sure that after a while I'll grow tired of those as well and long for something else, and the "vacation" I took from WWII subjects will help me to look at those with a different frame of mind and a fresher perspective.

 

I'm also suffering from same disease as well.

I just looked and i have 6 builds in progress ......... 5 armor , 1 aircraft and 1 ship ..... make that 7 !