You have to start somewhere


The photo above has something a bit out the ordinary in it: an F-35 fighter jet. Kid #2 asked for a model F-35 on his Christmas list, so "Santa" popped over to Burnaby Hobbies and did some shopping.  

Normally Santa buys paint, thinner and other general modelling supplies when he visits this store as it isn't a railway focused hobby shop.  This go around he looked through the very large selection of model kits and came away with an Airfix 1:72 kit with both a Spitfire (which also happens to be the first model I ever built while in hospital getting my adenoids out when I was 6) and an F-35 Lightning II.  Kid #2 was quite happy on Christmas morning when he opened the gift.  

These are a nice basic beginner kit that has sufficient detail to be interesting while not being an overly complicated model to assemble.  Kid #2 did a good job of assembly with some help from dad over a couple of days, with only a few fingerprints melted into the plastic from a bit too much glue applied.  This was cleaned up with some judicious sanding.  Then it was time for priming and painting.  


Kid #2 has had some airbrushing experience previously when we built a foam Boba Fett helmet so they had some familiarity with the process.  We elected to airbrush some Tamiya fine surface primer to prepare the model for paint.  After sorting out how far from the model to spray, air pressure etc. it was off to the races.  Kid #2 did a good job of keeping the primer even and avoiding too many splotches and uneven areas.  





Spraying the Vallejo Dark Sea Grey went well, I explained the differences between the Tamiya primer (a sort of lacquer-alcohol hybrid) and Vallejo acrylics.  We used a different airbrush for each paint type to avoid potential problematic interactions between the paint types - don't ask how I learned this... Still to come is decals and a final satin coat to finish the model off.  

I'm happy that Kid #2 is finding something of interest other than online gaming.  It may not last, but for the time being there is another budding modeller in the house.  Who knows, they might eventually pick up model railroading as a hobby.  Time will tell, but you have to start somewhere.

Comments

  1. Anonymous2 January 2025 at 10:03

    Hi Marc, I'm reminded of my Dad, the English teacher. In his later teaching years, he was asked to coordinate a club or activity. They settled on a model building club. I was never there with him, heard some reports of how it went, and now he's no longer here to ask. One of my times I fall off the cliff of not having him around. Regardless, I do think that some of his high school kids got at least a brush (pun intended) with model building and maybe it'll be something they get back to weeks, months or years later.

    Thanks for sharing, good luck with keeping those kids on the straight and narrow - be they rails or runways, in scale!

    Happy New Year and thanks for your effusive efforts!
    Eric

    ReplyDelete

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