What started you model building/painting and how old were you?

[Brokeneagle]

I often wonder what started other modellers on their journey and how different their stories would be from mine, so I thought a post on this might be interesting for everyone to read and discuss.

So I will start, to give everyone an idea of what I mean in case there are a few who are unsure..........

Mum and Dad used to take me to the museum when we went to the city [of Melbourne] for various other reasons (mainly because I made enough 'please, please' , requests that it was the only way to shut me -up). I used to love the labyrinth of hallways with cabinets and displays, especially the military section but beyond the guns and tanks, the displays throughout the building were sprinkled with dioramas.
A lot of these dioramas were of mining towns and equipement, depicting cut-aways and tunnels with miners at the end, digging away under lights at the far end of tunnels with sound effects added.
These were then combined with the plethora of WW2 movies on the TV etc at home, such as Von Ryans express, Guns of Navarone etc.
It was 1970 and the Beatles had just broken-up, man landed on the Moon and I was 7 years old.
I started on 1/72 bagged Russian plane kits that I got from the sowing machine store at the local shops. I then moved on to the Airfix and Frog kits that had double kits that were adversaries but the planes weren't doing it for me, diorama wise.
I just wanted to learn about the history of WW2 and create diorama scenes like in the Museum, so I switched to the new(at that time) Tamiya 1/35 scale kits coming out.
My first ever 1/35 scale kit was the DAK panzer 2 with figures. I built it, put it on a base made out of a house tile and 'slapped' on some plaster - no paint!
It was 1972 and the journey was well under way.

 

[JSteinman]

Great story, I guess mine is different. I must have been 5 years old, and my family was visiting my mother’s parents in a small upstate New York town with not much to entertain me. I remember sitting in their den building a kit of the Mayflower, it was black plastic, I then moved on to Aurora 1/48 tanks and Lindbergh 1/72 dio in a box. I remember buying airplane kits at a place called Clover when I was a little older and then shifting to Aurora monster kits. It must have been about 1972 when my dad took me to a Squadron shop. I was in disbelief. I still recall a Sherman in their display case with a scratch-built mine device. It was here that I bought my first Tamiya kit, the SAS jeep. I was hooked and never turned back. In those early years, I built most of the Renwal kits and even a few early Italeri kits, but they were almost always land-based military subjects. That SAS jeep was the subject of my first dio, and I still have it. Had to be pre 1975. I will attach a photo.

The jeep's front end used to be airborne, but gravity, no matter how slowly, always wins. So I guess my dio adventure began more than 50 years ago, and while I haven’t always been faithful to the hobby, I seem to always return.

Late 70s project, my first taste of Airfix multi pose figures.

Late 70s, early 80s. First time I used insulation foam to make structures.

Early 80s make that Tamiya suspension work! There are more from this time period, but my first big break from the hobby came in August of 1981, when I was off to college!

This is 1985. I remember it as the first dio I entered in a show; took 3rd. I had just graduated from college and was working in industrial sales in Pennsylvania.

Last project before starting dental school in 1987. Tamiya Horch and Flak kits, styrofoam building.

There were many more projects in high school, some large, like the 4x8 Kursk dio I did for a high school history project, and elaborate city scenes, mostly gone after my father passed away and we cleaned out his house. As I dig them out, I will post what I think are milestone projects. To me, my journey looks like a slow burn with sporadic huge leaps in skills. Do you guys progress in a similar waY?

 

[Brokeneagle]

Great story, I guess mine is different. I must have been 5 years old, and my family was visiting my mother’s parents in a small upstate New York town with not much to entertain me. I remember sitting in their den building a kit of the Mayflower, it was black plastic, I then moved on to Aurora 1/48 tanks and Lindbergh 1/72 dio in a box. I remember buying airplane kits at a place called Clover when I was a little older and then shifting to Aurora monster kits. It must have been about 1972 when my dad took me to a Squadron shop. I was in disbelief. I still recall a Sherman in their display case with a scratch-built mine device. It was here that I bought my first Tamiya kit, the SAS jeep. I was hooked and never turned back. In those early years, I built most of the Renwal kits and even a few early Italeri kits, but they were almost always land-based military subjects. That SAS jeep was the subject of my first dio, and I still have it. Had to be pre 1975. I will attach a photo.
View attachment 188205
The jeep's front end used to be airborne, but gravity, no matter how slowly, always wins. So I guess my dio adventure began more than 50 years ago, and while I haven’t always been faithful to the hobby, I seem to always return.
View attachment 188206
Late 70s project, my first taste of Airfix multi pose figures.

View attachment 188207
Late 70s, early 80s. First time I used insulation foam to make structures.

View attachment 188208
Early 80s make that Tamiya suspension work! There are more from this time period, but my first big break from the hobby came in August of 1981, when I was off to college!

View attachment 188209
This is 1985. I remember it as the first dio I entered in a show; took 3rd. I had just graduated from college and was working in industrial sales in Pennsylvania.
View attachment 188210
Last project before starting dental school in 1987. Tamiya Horch and Flak kits, styrofoam building.

There were many more projects in high school, some large, like the 4x8 Kursk dio I did for a high school history project, and elaborate city scenes, mostly gone after my father passed away and we cleaned out his house. As I dig them out, I will post what I think are milestone projects. To me, my journey looks like a slow burn with sporadic huge leaps in skills. Do you guys progress in a similar waY?

great story John and what a bonus that you actually have photos and the dioramas .........
I think that SAS jeep was my second Tamiya kit.

 

[jknaus]

When I was around 5 I had a project in school to make pyramids. The normal parent building and kid taking all the glory thing. My dad gave me a set of small figures riding camels. I cant remember the brand or scale. They gave me paint and mom watched as I splashed it on. If I remember correctly next came some cars. i got one of the old Timex displays and used it as a multi level garage. Did some of the old Aurora creatures and some aircraft. Then started working in the hardware store after school when I was around 9. Dad had a hobby shop set up in half the store and I got into armour and aircraft. I got to try trains and racing and stopped modelling for a while when I rewired the cars to go faster. Did an RC ship, some rockets, RC helicopter and this and that into my teens. Got more serious and tried dioramas. It was the Shep Paine era. My first vignette was a Tiger I and I used the canned Christmas snow to make it wintry. Then a fellow who visited my Dads store got me into figures. Found Historex after that and did Napoleonic's until I found girls, joined the Air Force. After a couple of kids started back into aircraft and then armour and then waffled back and forth. Unfortunately I was super interested in history and started my library and modelling bogged down a bit. After being medicaled out of the Air Force I kept found disability starting to affect my modelling until O got medicaled out of my Flight Simulator job, and now I am retired with too many models and books, lots of time, but hit or miss modelling. I'm planning a fairly large diorama and hoping I can chip away at it and keep the cats from destroying it.
James

 

[moon puppy]

I think I must have been 5 or so, I was taking apart toys and putting them back together. I remember that Matt Mason space man stuff and all the accessories. I think that's why my parents never got me a GI Joe, I tore up all the stuff. I can remember one Christmas getting a good size Porsche 911 kit and making it a huge glue bomb.
I got into HO which got me into building model stuff for that and then just graduated to larger scale stuff.