Sunday 10 November 2013

It's just a sort of addiction really

The models on the couple of posts below are just for me and have been in gestation for years, but in the end I return to them.  Why?
I guess, when you come right down to it, the most common reason by far that people become model making professionals is because they take to it well at a young age and by practice they get quick enough to make it their living.  What this means is that it's a paying hobby, the ideal job. Consequently, there's no escaping it.  Give it up for something else if you will.  Find yourself in other circumstances for a while, or get sidelined into another interest or career path even, but you will always come back to model making, either as an intense interest or back again as a career, as I have done.  And as I know many have.
I spent a while living afloat and had no space for modelmaking, so I took up painting, but as soon as I was back on dry land, I looked at an old caravan in the garden and thought, "Hmm, workshop".

When I worked abroad as a clay modeller for the prototype car industry, the other guys had never heard of me.  It is a very small, close-knit industry and they couldn't understand how I could have worked in the field without their knowing me.  My answer was, "because I used to do this", showing them photos of previous models I'd made for clients, miniature ones in that case and that usually ended the conversation.

In all my modelmaking life I have never been asked to make any scenic models for anybody.  Odd, but that's how it is, so I have always kept scenery for me.  I like to go to great detail in my scenic work, experimenting and trying new ideas and I don't think anyone would want to pay for all those hours.

I don't mind, because this feeds my addiction and that, I think, is really what it is.


3 comments:

  1. You seem to be on a bit of a roll mate! Keep on going as I follow your travels and travails though Google mapping.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I agree, once bitten, you can never go back to "normal" again! I love that canal lock gate and the mighty crack in the counterbalance beam!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Iain, the lock gate took me some time to do, as first made accurate winding gear masters in brass and got them cast by a friend in white metal, so I had a set of three, one for the bottom gate and two for the top, mitre set. Based on Welsh Canal lock furniture. I never swung a gate that didn't have cracks in the beams! That's oak for you.

      Delete