It’s that time of year once again….. is it too early to panic??

Modelling has been on the back burner over the last few months, well actually most of this year due to many reasons, my health, life in general,  lack of inspiration and of course work which has been particularly stressful with much going on especially over the summer and with the couple of weeks that I had off and with much planned I ended up spending just as much time in work as I normally do, some holiday. Of course there are always positives as I managed to refurbish my workroom this year and built yet not painted a couple of kits one of which is for this years long trip to Telford so it has not been all bad. To be fair it has been a bit of a strange year in my modelling world and it has been rather up and down with more time spent in the down than the up. In my opinion the modelling year starts with the return from the midlands for Scale Model World and ends the moment we pack the car for that very same trip the following November, I had a lot of high hopes for this year however circumstances being what they are it seems to have gone the same way as all the others in recent memory. Once we returned last November and the new modelling year kicked off I begin by putting the purchases away reflected upon the weekend just gone, thought about blogging about it and did something that I’d not normally do and I built a model, strange I know although it has yet to see any paint.

Fast forward 10 months and I find myself sitting here mid September thinking that above everything else it is only about 50 or so days until the annual trip to Scale Model World and I have just one and a half built models and have the feelings of a severe case of deja vu, I really do not do myself any favours year in year out and find myself looking ahead at the ever decreasing day count to get my models built painted weathered finished and put on bases before I run out of time. If I worked well under pressure it would be easy to say that it is not a problem however sadly it is and I can feel the panic and obvious stress building and I know that it all should be very straight forward and I should complete them in good time and be able to sit back and maybe build something extra for the club stand yet I know that there will be the annual airbrush disaster and I will be drying paint and varnish on the night before we leave with the trusty hairdryer. Maybe I should start my builds during the cold winter months of December January and February when there are little other distractions and not the roasting hot months of June July and August like I did this year, although the weather was glorious (to some) it is not very conducive to good modelling as the glue evaporates quickly under normal conditions yet alone when it’s around 30 degrees in the workroom.

Every year I go through the same mental torture as the summer holidays end and we are thrown into the deep end of a brand new academic year and as the hot weather cools  into the nicer autumnal temperatures and the model show scene kicks back in and we find ourselves travelling either into the deep countryside or down to the coast in search of our modelling fix and to be able to feast our eyes on the endeavours of others knowing that our own lack of effort at the workbench is highlighted by the great work done by our fellow modellers which sadly puts us to shame. It is the harsh truth that every year I sit down faced with an ever dwindling amount of potential modelling days and know that as a lazy modeller I will be really up against it to get anything finished let alone 2 or maybe 3, why do I do it to myself ?, maybe it’s a way of punishing myself for constantly adding to the stash throughout the year when at the start of every year I promise myself and the long suffering Kerry that I will not buy any new models as I do not really need any and then low and behold they start arriving or I pick up them up at shows and add to the ever increasing and rarely diminishing stack of unbuilt kits. I suppose one of the shinning lights is that any kits I have started this year have been built from start to finish and are only in need of a slap or two of paint, perhaps it is a sign that I have turned a corner in my modelling and are not going through the start a kit, have problems, put it on the shelf forget about it and then repeat the process all over again.

So, here I am on a Saturday evening updating my blog which is something I have not done in nearly 2 months and although it is 56 days until the start of Scale Model world according to the IPMSUK website I am not quite panicking yet, I have tomorrow evening set aside for some bench time and the hope to get kit number 2 as close to finished as I can plus with a trip to Folkestone next weekend for Euro Miniature Expo on the horizon not everything is gloomy modelling wise at average modeller HQ as there is still time to turn out a model or 3. Of course not withstanding I can always turn what could be a potential success into a complete disaster and back again in the little over a month I have left as it would not quite be me if I didn’t. Now with this blog post nearly done, some bench time planned a weekend away and with modelling back at the top of the agenda it is a little bit too early to panic and I will hold that back for at least a week or so.

The Average Modeller.