Hmmmm! My list may get a little long so my apologies.
My apologies and respect also to those who build tanks, Jeff Herne, and Amazon women.
Here I go,
1. Getting that first little tweaky feeling in the pit of my stomach when I see
a subject and get an idea to incorporate that subject in a project.
2. Shopping for and buying the plans, model, or models, or a box of plastic and
a pile of wood to make a model. Spreading all the parts on the table and visualizing
what they will someday look like and explaining all this to my wife, who looks
about as enthused as a stuffed moose.
3. Researching, which is an excuse to get out of the house to visit museums,
libraries, or veterans, or to sit and be a couch potato watching Victory at
Sea re-runs.
4. Shopping for aftermarket parts and combing the Fabric and Beauty Supply
stores for parts and materials. I love the expression on the storeclerks face.
5. Opening the box and playing with the little airplanes and deck guns.
This has been a ritual since I was two years old.
6. Realizing, judging from the stares from my family and their visiting friends, while
I'm playing with the little airplanes at the kitchen table, that I am no longer
two years old.
7. Sitting down and finding that I have taken on a big risk, investment in time
and money, and really have to "think" how on earth I am going to
scratchbuild a 1/700 F9F Panther with folded wings, full complement of rockets,
and the crew chief standing on the wing, in fact, twenty of them in various
positions.
8. Having to have the house evacuated, the fire department called, and the
house fumigated because I didn't get the mix right on a batch of resin or
forgot to vent the sulfuric tank when etching, hence see number 7.
9. Having a six year old boy and a six month old kitten "help" me rig
shrouds on a 1/96 Confederate Raider which was ambushed the night before by my
helpers.
10. Setting up the airbrush, only to have it clog, spit, and sputter throughout
the entire night.
11. Sanding in 1/700 scale, never enough or always too much.
12. Waiting eleven weeks for my entire PE order to arrive, and the day it does,
I find that my bottle of CA has solidified and it is Sunday, my only day off,
and also the day off for all hobby store employees.
13. Sitting down and concentrating on tying a precise knot on a rig or a bend
on some photoetch, only to have my train of thought interrupted by the phone,
"Oh Honey", or the sound of a crash followed by a scream from a kid,
cat, and a barking dog.
14. Having my tools and supplies "borrowed" to pluck eyebrow hairs
and to polish and glue fingernails.
15. Actual construction of the hull, upperworks and details are the best,
figuring out how I'm going to mask and paint a dazzle scheme on it after I have
glued everything in place gives me a totally different feeling, such as either
that of "bang head against wall" "throw model against wall"
or "go have a beer".
16. Actually finishing the project and realizing that I have overcome a
challenge, that it actually looks like a ship and not something the dog coughed
up, but anticipating about starting a new, more challenging project they may
someday look like Jeff Herne built it. But, due to me lacking such
refinement of skills for the time being, I may just have to settle on building
something like a Tank or one of those sculptures of a half naked Amazon woman.
17. Realizing that I can't just build one at a time, but have to be working on
at least three projects at the same time.
18. Coming to FSM and finding that I am not alone, that there are others as worse
or a lot worse off than I am with this love, addition, interest in model ship
building.
19. I don't have any likes or dislikes about the ship building process, I like
everything about it. I'm also bi-polar.
20. Cats.