I am sitting in my basement tonight putting decals on a 110 "Wespen", painting canopy frames on a Stuka, and placing missles on a Mig-25.
As I look behind me I see two shelving units displaying my 50+ models that are completed. Now my question is when I am older and building and then get married, have a couple kids, and eventually die. What will happen to the models? Will they be passed down, or eventually tossed out with the garbage in the landfills of 2086 (I will be 100)? I figured that I do this hobby now, to ease the stress. But the future generations of me, might look at it as a waste of time and space. Maybe the glue and paint fumes are playing with me. Someone write back and tell me I'm not crazy.

~cHiP :-)

Simple really... what other hobby allows you to experience the panic of realising that you may just have cyno'ed a 54mm scale medieval shield to your thumb and middlefinger... :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)

I have nobody to hand the models on to. Three daughters will not want them! Does it matter? I really don't think so. My pleasure is in building them now. In the here & present. What happens to them after my death is irrelevant. Much the same as what happens to me after my death. Who cares?

Vinnie

Hi, I build for therapy, to try to keep the old brain box in some sense of 'normal.' What's that? And it seems to work, most of the time anyway, as long as I don't get in over my head into something that is beyond my abilities.

This hobby, plus a couple others I do are basically in therealm of 'creating' something from various serperate items are what tends to 'make me tick' and put some sort of sense into my idiotic brain and serves there purpose in the here and now.

And like Teacher says, what happens to them when I gone is of no consequence to me. We are merely ants anyway, crawling around on the planet's surface and everything evetually ends up in ond big landfill. More than likely sooner rather than later. (I need to get back on my pills again. Ha, ha!)

Take care, Sgirty

Interestingly enough (for me anyway) is that I can't build for stress therapy... when I'm stressed my hands temor pretty badly... so painting and glueing et al is pretty much else out - at least until I've calmed down...

It keeps me out of the bars... :-)

Dave

Well, my friend, you've come to the psychiatric realization that, "Yes, model building is, in essence, a completely useless hobby for 90% of those who do it ".
Alas, I continue not knowing what will become of all of my plastic later in time. I'm not sure it matters, really. I live my life in a constant state of "imagination overflow" and this particular hobby (scale modeling) is just one conduit.
There's woodwork, leatherwork, electronics, fencing (w/swords), re-enacting, writing, drawing, music, theater, paranormal investigation, railfanning and RPG games like "RIFTS".

It all helps to quell my imaginational overloads.

Please note: The above statement is my own evaluation of percentages involving scale modeling. In my own opinion, the last 10% consists of those who sell their models for a price that is, shall we say, more than sufficient to the effort, ie: Indust. Light and Magic, etc...lucky ducks!

So, in light of all this, keep modeling I say! I would start maybe thinking about where your "less than favorite" models might go as you collect and build more and more to display.

I hope I have helped and entertained! #:-)


Cuhail

For me, it's FUN! Most of my life I was the shy, loner type and it allowed to do something by myself that kept me out of trouble. Now that I'm married with 3 (mostly) grown kids, it gives me something to do and gives me some quiet "me" time. My wife says I'm playing with my "little army men". I tell her that it's art, dang it! :-)

Personally, I do it to relax. Its the kind of hobby that does'nt have any kind of social advancement. What I mean by that is even if i get really, really good at building models. I still won't make a career out of it. So its just for me. I figure when I do X-amount of models and run outta run, I'll just donate them to my local city museum. Most places will take em. Besides we're to cool for start trek conventions! :-)

-Jay-

I think we all build for differant reasons. Sometimes I do it for fun, sometimes as a non-violent release of frustration, sometimes just to see if I can complete a certain project the way I envisioned it. As for what happens to them in the distant future, I think I'd like to have mine go to a VFW or American Legion post. And it doesn't bother me now if people think I'm wasting my time, so who cares what they think when I'm gone. Just enjoy whatever you're doing.

Art

As a fairly new model builder (going on 5 years now) I have pondered this question.

#1 Reason.

The Personal sense of accomplishment at seeing a completed model that I've built.

#2

I build things that I am interested in and find that I learn a lot of WWII history as I build models.

#3

The sense of being in a community of my peers that share a common interest, and the ability to show my work to others who are knowledgeable in the subject and also see their work.

Interesting thread!

At first started doing it because I loved to put plastic together and making things out of what appeared to be a bunch of parts and not one thing.

I am one f the fortunates who can make a living from doing what I love to do, sculpt figures! So now its more of work then a hobby I guess, something which is not always a good thing. Now to have fun I usually paint up a stock kit or do something a little different, but I think my hobby per say have moved from figures to team roping.

As for what will happen when I die, hopefully people will still be able to enjoy what I create and for the finished stuff I hope ends up in someones collection who really appreciates what we do.

Why? So we may all answer questions such as these on Armorama. Silly Rabbit!