Hello everyone,
Thank you very much for allowing me to join this group. Good to be here.
I joined MSW a week ago at the suggestion of another member here, but haven’t gotten around to an intro until now.
I’m a 62 year old retired Deckhand/Deck Officer formerly with the Canadian Coast Guard of the Federal Government of Canada. I was at that career for 35 years and 4 months.
Born and raised on the coast of British Columbia, I currently live in Warman, Saskatchewan (just North of Saskatoon). I moved here in 2016 for family reasons.
I am essentially a beginner scale modeler. Here is my modeling story, hopefully in brief…….
I just recently finished my first completed scale model build in 50+ years. I had finally gotten around to checking out THE hobby store here in Saskatoon 5 years after moving here. It was an unplanned opportunistic visit. Walked out with an Academy 1/400 Titanic and another much simpler non ship model. That was in June 2022. Both models sat untouched all of last winter.
The non ship model was purchased mainly for a nostalgic reason and is yet to be built. I’ll be starting that one soon and I intend to post a build log for that in the Non-Ship forum. There is more than just the nostalgic reason for that build now. It will be a great model to develop skills. Detail painting and airbrushing in particular.
As for the recently “completed” kit….that would be the 1/400 Titanic. I started it in early November and “completed” it mid January. I will post some pictures and text about it in the Completed Gallery soon.
In the meantime, I just want to say that I started that model without any prior research or a plan. Just dove in, having no idea what to expect after a 50+ year hiatus from plastic scale modeling. It is also the most complex plastic scale model I have ever attempted, by far. I was somewhat disappointed with it, in the end. I attribute this to two aspects. My skill level (essentially a green as grass beginner) and the model itself as manufactured (historical inaccuracies; fit issues; and fine detail painting required where I would have preferred parts to attach).
Having said that, I thoroughly enjoyed the process and want another crack at it. Therefore, I’m going bigger. I’ve purchased the Trumpeter 1/200 Titanic. It arrived yesterday 😊. I have read the pinned article “For Beginners – A Cautionary Tale”. I intend to not give up. Many lessons already learned from the 1/400 build, and many many more lessons to come, and learn, and skills to develop. I’ve been researching the 1/200 quite a bit, the last two weeks. I am already aware that it too has inaccuracies. Some of which I will deal with, whereas others I will accept as is. But I digress. This build will not start for quite some time. I will begin a build log on that project when the time comes, but in the meantime I intend to focus on much smaller and simpler builds to develop my lacking skills.
One final note….a brother of mine gave me a Corel 1/25 “Sloup”, Modello SM 43, wooden kit as a Christmas gift some 25+ years ago. It is a model of a small French F/V. I still have it. I actually started it, way back, but then after three rows of the planking done, I got to the difficult task of needing to bend the next rows for the hull’s buttock lines where they meet the transom. I tried, but eventually gave up. I learned years later that there’s more to it than simply holding and bending said planks in the steam of a boiling kettle of water, as the instructions indicated.
I also learned on this site that difficulty with planking is the single most deterrent to a wooden ship modeler from continuing. That is actually comforting to now know. But I digress. Point being I intend to continue and complete this kit as well, but that’s a few years down the road.
Again, thank you very much for the privilege. I look forward to learning many aspects and techniques of scale modeling from the wealth of expertise here.
Cheers,
Mark Meester