Of course, everybody wants to know or trace back our modelling "roots"... :-)

My dad got me smelling the wonders of tube-d cement one day when I was 7 years old, he brought home a kit of an Oldsmobile, the one Al Capone used as his limousine. When I started to grow older, trips to Manila(probinsyano kasi ako) often found me going to Nova Fontana Greenhills and getting an assortment of WWII aircraft and Armor. Albeit, my notion of the hobby back then was just "stick-em together, and display display display! haha!", then my siblings grew up and found my stash of kits, the rest went to history. Darn it, sira lahat nang kits ko. hehe!

It just happened. Like one day when I was in grade school, I was strolling along the downtown area of our city & stumbled into Matchbox airplane models ( I think they were 1/72 scale). But as most of us know there are almost no Model hobby shops in the province so mine was like an on-off kind of a hobby. I went building again back in '94, when I stumbled upon an Academy 1/35 M1 Abrams. Then it was off again & back again in 2000 when I was working in Manila. It was during that time that I started building dioramas. I have build around 4 dios before I finally decided to settle down & move here. Right now I'm kinda starting from scratch since I left most of my stuff there in the Phil. I have a project waiting to be build, but I'm still waiting for my compressor to arrive. Anyway I hope to get in touch with you guys here as I do with the other forums.

yeh, I remember Matchbox kits.. i got an armor kit in 1/76th scale for 3.50 pesos during that time in Ever Emporium,Morayta. (let me see what year was it????!!!)
It was really my father who introduced me to modelmaking.. He just love armor and O scale trains.
My father bought me my first 2 kits from Dau Pampanga( the PX capital of Luzon). well he thought Marcos was planning to shut down Dau... (and we all know that it never happened.)
Anyway I got a Tamiya "Pink Panther" Land Rover and Daimler Scout Car. -
Ever wonder what happened to my father's collection ... hell, I dunno myself the only thing left was my father's display case..

My first step into the modeling hobby is from LEGO toys. Not actually modeling but building them and making alternatives etc. are some basic steps needed in modeling.

Tried Gundam kits at first knowing they were robots and I was a fan of mechs. Snap on kits and are easy to build. Time has passed, I tried painting them. For white paints, I've used liquid paper and it look good since I'm not that experienced enough. Then bought some Gundam markers as coloring tools and doing the panel lines.

Tried some vinyl figures alongside still with Gundam figs. This time I buy real modeling paints. (Spray cans first cause I still suck in brushpainting). It turned out fine.

Then I bought my first kit, the Sea Harrier by Airfix. I combined all of my previous experiences and stuffs to make it look good. It turned out to be "a little good" for an amateur. Times pass... finished 5 AC's then been working now on AFV's and my T72, choppers and still with AC, the small figs and will do my first car kit.

Dad got me started. Just loved the smell of the glue #:-) Didn't even know what "scale" was all about. Just slapped together parts with seams galore and glue (and some blood) dripping everywhere.

Stopped for 10 years then picked it up again when I got my own apartment. I now focus more on 1/35 armor but I will pick up any interesting 1/72 plane when available.

Oh yes! LEGO! Pity their waaaaaaaaaay too expensive nowadays.

Started the hobby back in, oh, ODS/Gulf War Part Deux (if you count the Iran-Iraq War as Gulf War Part One), or a year before that. It was a gift from my uncle - a Dragon 1/144 F-14A Tomcat of VF-84 "Jolly Rogers". I thought the decals were stickers (I remember cursing trying to peel it off from the paper backing) and I ended up thoroughly destroying the kit. But from such inauspicious beginnings, the addiction took root - and take root indeed! Next kits that came (as gifts) was a 1/144 F-117 by Dragon and 1/144 Sepecat Jaguar (forgot the brand - maybe Academy? Not sure). This was when Iraq was in Kuwait, and a massive troop build up was happening in SA. Then my uncle-from-the-US-of-A arrived to give me my first big kits - 1/48 scale aircraft. But, after having NIL success in aircraft, I began to "branch out" with armor when dear mum came home after a month long visit to my aunts in the USA with several kits from a wishlist - my first armor kit being Tamiya's M60A3 TTS. And I got hooked, forever forgetting aircraft (okay, I did buy several other 1/144 kits as well as saving my allowance to buy a 1/48 Su-27 by Academy as a birthday gift to meself - all of which I miserably failed to build hehehehe). My next armor kit was I think an M1A2, then on and on and on and on it went until I found meself having practically several platoons worth of tanks I guess hehehehe

I've just started doing serious scratchbuilding now with the Twilight 2000 campaign (scrathcbuilt my first ever turret for the Black Eagle, doing a smaller scratchbuilt turret for the T-95), and most probably the summer of next year - depending as well on the availability of sheet styrene and other materials - I'll start my first ever scratchbuilt model (ok, so the tires will be from an existing kit, and the turret might come from another kit - but 90-95% of it will be scratchbuilt).

AND THEN... if I'm really confident in scratchbuilding, might as well start acquiring a steel plant and churn out real tank after real tank from the assembly line. :-)

For me it all started w/ my dad. The very first kit he bought me was a scale model of a "mining" vehicle in the Sea quest series. The next year during grade 2 my dad again bought me for my B-day MONOGRAM"S A-10 THUNDERBOLT. Everything in that kit is gone now. Go forward a few years & my dad again gave me an Academy MiG-29 Fulcrum it is also in bits right now. Then I got interested in cars & asked for my first model. I was given a 1/72 BF-109 instead there starts my serious interest in military stuff. Next I was given during X-mas of 2001 by my dad Tamiya's M1A1 w/ mine plow & by my Ninong a Tamiya Challenger1 Mk. III......more inspiration comes. Then came a deal w/ my dad. If I get to be Top 1 in class I get a crosman 1077 Airgun(I still remember the model no.?!) & if I don't, I don't know what. So the report card day came & I ended up in Top 4. Not bad for a last quarter's performance but bad enough to not get me an Airgun. But my dad still gave me Dragon's 82nd Airborne figs w/ XF-49, XF-59, & XF-15. I built that kit with all the seams included! #:-) #:-) #:-) but I got hooked since then. It still lives to this day.........well considering the fact that I only got hooked 2 yrs. ago. hehehehe #:-) #:-) #:-)
Dad is not a modeller or a military specialist or something. He is just plain interested in military hardware. A big part of that interested probably came from his childhood when he was living in Lamitan, Basilan. He was the son of my grandfather who was the Judge in that place. They were at peace w/ the MNLF those times & accdg. to my dad the MNLF were even "Nagmamano" to my Grandad. There good ol' dad was tolerated by both the military & the MNLF when he was out hunting "bayawak" w/ an M16A1. Damn I hope I was there..........

Happy Modelling!