I have a number of hobbies and many are from before I retired on December 31, 2023. Things like toy photography, toy collecting, comic book collecting, vinyl collecting and LEGO building kept me entertained. I rotated between these and a couple of other things including my music making.

Now that I’m retired I’ve taken up two new hobbies, fishing (at the request of grandsons) and scale model building. The fishing hobby I’ve already discussed in a post, go look through previous posts if interested, but I’ve not commented on the scale model building.

As a kid, I’ve always enjoyed building scale models. I can remember being in 2nd or 3rd grade and putting together models of the Gemini space capsule and the space walk. Both of these during the 1960s.

Jumping to 7th grade, 1977, I started building military models. Monogram‘s Patton Tank and Armored Half-Track are two models I distinctly remember building and then setting on fire to enact a battle. One other model I remember building during the time was a huge F16 Jet. Sadly, with all these models, I never had the paints to properly complete them. Whatever the model came molded in was how they ended up.

Move forward to 1982, while a junior in college, I got the modeling bug again and completed a couple of Star Wars models that were popular at the time, C3PO and R2D2. I have no idea what happened to these models. They were, at one time, prominently displayed on top of an entertainment center. Once again I did not have the proper paints to finish the models off but these were at least molded in the proper colors.

Jump to present 2024 and I decided to take up modeling again in retirement. I started my foray back into he hobby with a Polar Lights Captain America model that I had received 5 years earlier for Father’s Day. I am a Captain America fanboy and so my son and grandson gifted me this model to add to my Captain America collection (post of this coming soon). This time around I have the financial resources to buy the paints and the airbrush kit and modeling accessories to properly build models.

After the Captain America model I dove into a simple Polar Lights Green Hornet Black Beauty car model. A 1/32 scale model that turned out ok. I’m not happy with my airbrushing abilities as I’ve never used one before. So its a fun learning experience. I also don’t like the 1/32 scale model, too small for my liking.

I am currently working on Speed Racer’s Mach 5 car. I’m almost finished with it. I am still learning how to use the airbrush though so I’m not happy with the paint job at the moment.

I enjoy the time spent building the models. I take my time. I think the only thing I don’t like is cleaning my airbrush after painting. That is a pain in the ass. I have a whole stack of models to build over the next 12 months. Some easy, some more challenging. I look forward to continuing this hobby as well as fishing, making music, toy photography and building LEGOs.