Hello everyone..

Ive been reading a lot of, "once I got back into the hobby" lately... So heres the qestion, What got you back into it? For me, it was a buddy how came up and asked if I still built models.. My reply was, "havent for awhile" He opened the trunk of his car and there was a cardboard box full of kits... Mostly tamiya.. I'd say 8 or ten amour kits..Mostly German and a few American. All hade been opened but the bags were still closed.. It seems his wifes grandfather couldnt see well enough to build anymore..

I still have a most of those kits waiting to be built.. Im moving into a house the end of september and will finally have room to start building them.. And the others Ive picked up along the way... Its a disease I tell yah..*L* But thats how I got back into modelling... Whats your story....

My girlfriend likes to make scented candles and I made the mistake of allowing her to drag me to Hobby Lobby about 3 years ago. She was off looking at various grades of waxes - what was I supposed to do?

I wandered over to the model section to check it out, and walked out of the store with Tamiya's cheap Panther A (the one with the missing roadwheels). I was re-hooked. Since that time I've easily purchased and built 100 kits. Call me looney Teresa still rues the day she drug me to Hobby Lobby. LOL

Jeff

My break was instigated by college then getting a career going etc. etc. The urge and need to be creative never went away it was just channeled into other things for a while.
Then when some one asked me what I wanted for Christmas one year I didn't have an immediate answer. I went pondering the 'stuff' I was doing at the time and nothing struck me. Then I saw something on the History Channel and Shazam. I put a model down on the liist. I thought about the ones I did when I was young and a B24 wasn't one of them so I asked for a 1/48 scale B24. The rest they say is "history".........

I wanted a hobby that gave me some creativety. Something to keep me occupied. I kid my wife that I'm about ready for my midlife crisis. I can either build models, learn to fly, or chase women. She chose building models. I sometimes wonder if learning to fly wouldn't be cheaper. I'm SURE that flying would be safer than chasing women.

I give my wife credit, she turned me on to Hobby Lobby and their half off sales. She took me down my first time and had me buy every model that struck my fancy. About $120 worth. Now we have our work areas side by side, my models, her stained glass.

Having dabbles a bit in my younger days, the baby/toy shop beside me started stocking tamiya and Academy models as an extra range. In the 9 months leading up the birth of our daughter, every time my wife was looking at baby things... I was fantasizing over with the model section. That Christmas when I opened my gifts ... I was shocked to see Academys M1A1. I left it sitting for a few months, then decided one day that I was stuck at home to pull out the kit....... I started building .. built all evening and at 5:30 the next morning had brush painted it olive green .. silver towing ropes.. black machine guns and a few very silvered decals. It was beautiful!!!!!!!! That week I had built and painted, tamiyas willys jeep, Italeris opel maultier and Lav-tua. One week later I found missing links, docs dios and a few other sites ........ brought out the caustic soda.......and started again!! That was about 27 months ago! Been here since!

I'm almost ashamed to admit what brought me back. I picked up my first model, this time, as a way of having something to do that would give me solo time without my wife. I didn't realize it at the time why I did it, but now that the divorce is final and I've had some time to reflect on it I see that a lot of what we did that last year or so was just ways to not be with each other.

Now I just keep doing cause I have nothing else to do and it keeps my hands busy when I'm not playing Magic and throwing darts.

Well, it was modelling, but of a different sort that dragged me back into this hobby after a break of nearly 5 years (last modelled a kit waaay back in 1995).

I got into 3D and animation recently about a year and a half back. Wanted to make a Willy's Jeep very badly in Rhinoceros 3D after making a and texturing a Spitfire. Looked around for scale plans, but couldn't finad any good ones. Checked it out on Ebay, and got a kit as part of a group lot which included 6 Armor and 5 Luftwaffe kits. After that I went nuts, buying plenty of kits on Ebay #:-) (Another fact is that we don't get kits or accessories, even paints) here in India).

Since then I've started collecting kits and making some, and I've never looked back. Even tho' I've now quit making 3D stuff, this one's got me hooked for life!!

Cheers,
BP.

GREAT Topic...

What brought me back? Hmmmmm, that's a good question.

In some ways I never left, at least entirely. Let me rewind the tape and see where I was and where I IS!

(sound of tape rewinding)

As a kid, from about the age of 5-6 I hurled glue against plastic and "built" kits- my big brother got me into it! I remember an endless parade of Aurora, Revell, Monogram and other kits (the Phantom Mustang, a series of T6s by Hawk I think, Japanese Zeroes from Aurora- molded in BRIGHT yellow, the SBD by Monogram with the dropping 500# bomb and working dive flaps, and many more) The desire to build kept at me pretty much thru my teen years. I still vividly remember when I discovered Imrie-Risley miniatures. I kept at the hobby and in ‘73, ‘74 I opened my own hobby shop...patterned after the original Squadron Shop (which was my first REAL hobby shop). That lasted about 3-4 years and cost me a bundle, still I kept at the hobby! In fact I kept NUMEROUS kits and I still have a LOT of them!

Along about this time I got into being a "grown up"...and all that came with that.

As the years went by I had 2 kids (well actually my wife had 'em , started another biz, which went down the crapper, started a new career as a graphic designer... and so on- you know, I did the LIFE thing.

(sound of tape fast forwarding)

1991- BIG WAR in the Gulf!! I started buying kits again. I actually started several of them... finishing them was another thing however. I bought a lot of aftermarket stuff, ALL of which I still have! NOTHING was finished...but the desire, the love of the hobby was there all along.

Then Online Computer Games happened, specifically AirWarrior on GEnie. Many, MANY hours, $s and about 3 years later I left that addiction...

(fast forward again to 2003)

Kids are 13 and 15... I have been unemployed/ underemployed for WAY too long and I am looking around the net...still into this hobby thing from the periphery. Low and behold ARMORAMA pops up... I lurk and read for a considerable time. I tell my wife of 26 years that "I AM GONNA BUILD A MODEL". A kind smile and nod comes my way!

Then another war in the Gulf happens...and I get wind of something called the COLD WAR COOK-OFF. I finish my first model in 20-25 years.

What brought me back?? I guess I never left completely, I never decided I didn't want to build again.

What got me to finish a kit again??

A combination of things- Time on my hands (although my current "job" has CRAP hours), kids that are older and therefore less demanding of my time (but actually more in need than ever-they just don't see it that way), a war in the Gulf, and a love of this hobby that has never ever left!! And the FINAL piece of the puzzle that got me to finish a kit and actually get back in the hobby- ARMORAMA & CAMPAIGNS.

I have loved this hobby for as long as I remember- I have never really left it, I just backed off I guess! And I am DAMNED happy to be back!

Jim

I guess I never really "left" as it were. I have been tinkering at this hobby for about as long as I can remember. One of the first things I did with my wife was go out of town to a hobby shop. Life and the internet caught up with me and I let modeling slide. I sorta forgot how much I knew and how much I wanted to learn until I stumbled in here almost a year ago. I am not going to ask for a group hug or anything but I have spent more time working on armor, learning how to airbrush, using PE, actually finishing things, than I ever did in the past. In the end analysis, if I hadn't found this website I would probably be playing Diablo 2 on BattleNet instead of wonder how I am going to finish my kitchen for the Barb Campaign.

THANK YOU

Shaun

Who says I ever left?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

thought about doing it before I left the army as I didnt have a hobby and thought It'd be good
for stress reduction hmmmmmmm but wrong there but as i tell the wife when she has a
dig about the kits is that at least I'm not in the pub. It's a tuff call in the summer though
modelling or riding out on my scooter and in winter building 1/35 or 1/1 scale scooter
resto.....not enough time/money/arms when they can do gene mutation I'd like some
octopus genes the with 8 arms I might be able to model/build scooters at the same time #:-)

Here and I thought that place in Keene NH was the only baby/hobby shop on the planet!

I recently gave away the Italeri Desert Partol Hummer I built as the first kit, but it was seeing the 'new' DML Spetznaz, IDF Para's and the future releases LRRP's and SEALs 12-13 yrs ago is what got me hooked again.
I'm not sure if it was the little shop in Liberty NY, the bigger one in PAramus NJ, or Jans -?- in NYC where I bought the stuff first, but it's been a long strange trip since then.

I do remember buying the IDF Para's AND an Osprey book at the same time! I guess I'm a natural born AMS-er..

I was always a Fine Scale reader, but I got hooked up with the AOL plastic modeling board first, then RMS, then ML/HS/TL and then here.

I totally agree with what you said you said, the less I knew, I the more I built and in some senses the happier I was with it! I certainly finished more kits in those days...

Mike

A computer game.
First kit I ever built- Klingon battle cruiser, way back in 74 or 75 (I was 7 or 8 )
In high school (yikes almost 20 years ago) I got into building car models- but customizing them as if they were from the Mad Max movies. Modeling fell off until college- I found a Klingon battle cruiser and had to build it. Picking up some paints and glue, I got interested in some Soviet aircraft, built a Mig-29 and a Hind.

I was planning to go into the Navy for aviation after college, and around that time I built an E-2C Hawkeye. Didn't make it into the Navy, Congress had trimmed funding for new aviaton classes (this was 1989) so I missed the Gulf....
I didn't pick up modeling again for 9 years , sometime in 1998 I was playing a tank simulation
( I think Panzer Commander). Almost like a first person shooter with a panzer.

One feature of the game was the ability to review little 3-d models of the various tanks - I never saw a Hetzer or a Stug before, but I thought they looked very cool. In game I'd see little Hetzers sitting in the woods firing into the distance- I had to find out more about this weird little tank. I did some research, and subsequently became very interested in German armor- I was hooked.
I had to build the Hetzer and the Stug, - that's what drew me back in...

Peter

I decided that researching modeling building sites and kit vendors would be a better and more satisfying use of the Internet. When I mentioned actually buying and building kits to my wife she thought the idea was a good one. I hope I have struck a good balance between my hobby, work, home and family. Started a kit with my 11 year old daughter last winter. Hopefully this fall and winter I can really get more productive.

The Gulf war in 90-91 brought me back. I wanted to build a model of each type of plane, vehicle and helicpter that was used. I was also introduced to a club through the shop where I was buying my models. I had no chance, plastic was in my veins again. I have no intention of ever letting modeling lapse again. There is just too many kits to build, too much to learn, too many people to meet to ever stop until I get it ALL DONE!
capnjock

Hi. I basically have a very introvertive type of personality. Something that is getting a tad bit worse as I get older too, esp. since I've retired. Don't mix real well with my own species and tend to find I get along better with animals than with people. It's nothing personal towards anyone, it's just me. If you had a chance to meet some of my kin, you'd see that common sense and general mixing ability is something not real big in the gene pool! Ha! The only time we all get together is at a funeral and I think that's mainly just a 'have-to' case, or to make sure the person who died is really dead. We're a strange bunch. No joke. Something a-kin to the Adams' family.

Been into several hobbies in my life that, sooner or later, required a more active part in mixing with others and that is basically the time that I lost interest in them. I've found modeling to be one of those hobbies that I can satisfy myseslf, by myself.

Since my wife is basically just the opposite of me, she is satisfied to spend her time socializing and basically 'running' with her family, shopping, and such and this leaves me all the time I need, basically speaking, to pursue a hobby(s) that I can enjoy doing by myself.

Of course, since I've taken on the job of baby-stting my grand-daughter till she starts school, my free time is somewhat limited. But I figure if there's one thing good I've done in my life this would be it.

I seem to have re-entered this hobby back right after my dad died and we finally got the kids up and out of the house about 6 or 7 years ago, and I had the spare time to devote to something that I could do my myself, for myself. And this, coupled with sewing some counted cross sitich pictures, seems to fill most of my free time quite well.

And since the growth of this hobby is so great, and there is absolutely no end to the things you can do in it anymore, I know that it will satisfy me long after the little one has started to school and I have lots more free time on my hands.

Take care, sgirty

Hi all,

This almost sounds like a topic for the survey. But what brought me back was in 2000, I went to Ft. Knox for BNCOC. Well the guy who rode up with me and consequently my room mate for the course SSG MacMillion began talking about models. The next weekend we went to Louisville to a shop Scale Reproductions and needless to say it was all downhill from there. I can't visit the wife's family in Louisville without stoppin by that shop.

Well that's my story,

SSG Stephen Magee

I've been building models as long as I can remember. I do remember my first kit that dad built for me and building kits on my own.

I did slow down a bit in high school with football, wrestling and girls grabbing some time from my hectic days. But I never stopped building.

I started getting more into it after my first year of college. Going to basic and AIT and getting to play on the real stuff is a pretty good motivator for wanting to build something you got to ride in. Around this time I discovered Tamiya kits as well. Also when I stopped wrestling after my second year in college, I had more time to myself and liked to relax by model building.

Promotion then work pressure took me away, then Five heart attacks and looots of time off braught me back, now semi retired and still wrecking kits but Armorama helps me stay insane. #:-)

I'd built every kind of polastic kit as a kid in the 50's and 60's. Along about 1968, college came and I kind of let the interest slide. After college came marriage and a couple really poorly paying jobs and unemployment. I was not selling insurance for John Hancock and had a lot of time and frustration on my hands. I was in a downtown mall in Worcester MA in the summer of 1975 and saw a paper bag just sitting on the steps with no one around. I looked inside and there was an AH1 Cobra and a Helldiver in 1/72. I waited and looked for a while and no one came back. It was like a junky who just found a hit of his favorite drug. Next thing I know, I'm buying Revell 3 marking WWI 1/72 AC, MPC's WWII Airfix reboxes. Slapping the paint on by brush. In 76 or 77 I bought Tamiya's Grant and fell in love with 1/35 armor. Tried my hand at Napoleonics by Airfix and Historex. Discovered the joys of competition in 79 (an honorable metion for a BMW 750 being pushed out of the mud after having splashed an officer in greatcoat). Joined a now defunct club in Worcester in 81. Joined up with another club as it was forming in 88. Became its president in 90 and the founder got po'd and took the name and the money, but not the membership. We regrouped under another name a few weeks later. They won't let me resign as president now. Been having way too much fun with plastics, reisns and metal! #:-)

Hey, I was just up there a couple weeks ago! Got an Osprey book on the Plains Indians.

I've built models off and on since I was old enough to put the pieces together (7-8 I don't know), reading some of these posts just reminded me of the old kits I did, the old Hawk and monogram kits, an Enterprise (Original Star Trek, not the flat top), Klingon cruiser, a bunch of 1/48 WW2 aircraft (A26, B25, B26, B24, B17, B29, P40, P36, P51, P47, P61 off the top of my head). I guess I picked up the hobby from my dad. Kind of dropped off building by high school, I think it was a case of nomoneyitis and being a snob (if it wasn't Tamiya it was crap). Built a few 1/700 Battleship kits (for my dad, he actually paid me to build them, what a job), but except for a 4x4 Porche 911 I modified with a 20mm vulcan cannon I fell out of the hobby completely after high school. The Gulf war brought me back briefly, had to build an M1 and Bradley, would have done an M60 and LAV-25 but I couldn't find the turreted LAV, just other versions. Slacked off again for another 7-8 years bought some 1/72 armor and paints then fell out yet again (got married, moved a few times and had a child). Then earlier this year I was watching Band of Brothers and it rekindled my interest (particularly the scenes with the Cromwell, what a great looking tank) and then a few weeks ago I was doing building inspections (I work for a Navy Fire Department) I passed a desk with about 1/2 a dozen 1/35 armor models and a few 1/48 Naval aircraft models displayed, got back to the station hit up tanknet for recommendations for a Cromwell kit, few days later bought one, asked some more questions on tanknet which led me here, got into the idea of the Twilight 2000 campaign, couldn't wait so I signed up for the Barbarosa 2003, bought a KV-2 and here I am.

Hi...

I'm 37 years old. I was out of this hobby since mine 18 or 19.

I'm back... well... no special reason: I felt the need of use my free time in a more interesting way. Then, one day, I step into a toys shop, with a section of models. I hesitated to return to the hobby because I would need to buy an aerographer and an air compressor. But Santa Claus brought me these tools and so I'm back.

I find amazing how things are the same. I'm working on a Tamiya Sturmiger and I noticed on the plastic frames that the kit was produced on 1989. 14 years ago, almost on my old modeller times.

Techniques are also basically the same. The big diference is that we have Internet now, and that's a great diference!

I'm surprised that my first model in this new ages came out much batter then my last models of my first stage. It seems some things become better with time.

well i just started to build agian.
after like a 3 year lay off i just got burned out i guess.
i was building a ton of tanks 1 a month lol .
and i guess that did it to me. but back on july 4
i went to the air power museuem here on long island
and they have ww2 planes and tons of models and dios.
so going there got me back in to it

I Never stopped.
There was always a deptment store with neat models in it,so I could save my allowance when I was young,and have the satisfaction of earning my reward.
The Slowest I got was when I was stationed in Germany.But in the big town (Ansbach) there was a department store,with armor kits.The PX had military Modelling magasines,so I was able to feed the need.
When I returned from overseas and started living again,I just was able to deicate x number of hours to building.
And even today,the internet is a source for ideas,and I can see what others think of a kit,and can plan my purchases carefully. (++) (++)