Model making is a wonderful thing. It takes time and patience for sure but, for the most part, it lets you create something in miniature that you may rarely see in the flesh. I’m a great fan of design in general. I like how things go together. I like the process behind it, revealing how things work and why they work and interact with one another in a certain way. I guess I’m not alone there. With my recent builds there have been many times I’ve said to myself that my painting or building approach is rubbish I’ve stuffed something or other up again and it continually frustrates me. In my early modelling days, I didn’t possess that rare commodity called perseverance. Now whether it’s been the gift of life experience or something else entirely I persist at whatever modelling task I undertake. Those lingering doubts that we have always seem to creep in. But here’s the rub. We all have a selective vision of what we want to achieve with every model we build and I for one rarely reach that peak. But by the same token I can generally see that so-called vision through to the end. It’s a tough skill to master.
The other thing that comes to mind is how a really good rendition of what you’re doing pops up on social media or a magazine article that can sometimes de-motivate you as the build was so good you feel that you could not meet that standard, which strangely, is probably the last thing the build was intended to do. This is where perseverance comes into play and the ability to set your own standard, not what the perceived standard should be. For me, the last phase of modelling building is always a time of reflection with a whole raft of issues that come to mind from the build, the paint and the vision that we have had at the start. It’s funny, you know, I sometimes find myself viewing a model long after the build is complete and wondering to myself, how heck hell did I do that? But I think that maybe this is an age problem. Anyway, persevere with your builds and don’t be too hard on yourself.
Until next time Luke Pitt