@Luko26 Yes. It’s a great gateway to building more complex and realistic models, but as long as you are beyond “let’s hook all the prices together at random” phase, it counts. Just like purposely leaving Legos scattered on your floor counts as Parkour training.
Um, why is there not a “no, I didn’t see the point” option? In my day, the only models out there for kids to buy were of military equipment of one kind or another. Hours of labor to assemble a hideous plastic miniature of a killing machine? Wasn’t it really just an excuse to sniff the glue?
@basketcase I was going to argue the “killing machine” remark, but the longer I think about it, the more true it becomes. Wait, I had a set of model buildings. That’s safe, right…
This has been a serious blow to my childhood.
@simplersimon That depends: were they bunkers? Medieval castles? If so, really just a place to put your killing machines. Though a model castle would be cool . . .
I started off with the Universal monsters (second release with glow-in-the-dark pieces but moved on to cats and other things. I even had a subscription that sent me a different one every month.
But in spite of my enthusiasm and practice I was never good at it. Glue fingerprints, spilled paint, and crooked decals marred my work.
Still, a few years back I visited Testor for work, and it was like a pilgrimage.
Girl so not much opportunity (wasn’t a “girl appropriate activity” just like my Mom didn’t want me running in HS less I get huge thighs and scare off the boys) but when I could I would help my younger brother w his.
When I had sons it took all my willpower not to do theirs for them (mostly Legos) so they could actually enjoy it.
@mollama That’s why you get your own Lego sets. Lots of great stuff out there (I’ve been partial to the Technic stuff recently). Then you can build together!
… or more likely she was tricksy. “Sure thing daughter o’ mine. Boys hate makeup.”
… or I guess you’re probably referring to the old “proper wife” style sexism, whatever that’s called. Actually, this is kind of depressing, now that I think about it.
Though… I suppose it’s convenient to have a well-defined path to social success if you’re a good fit for it.
@mollama I built a balsa wood model of a WW2 airplane. The guy at the model store didn’t think I could do it because I was a girl. Which is weird even if you believe in gender stereotypes. It came out really well. You should go out and get one.
@InnocuousFarmer I know who it is. I meant when I saw that I was tagged, I just expected some close up lips because if I was going to torture someone that didn’t like lipstick, I’d find some seriously close up photos of bright lipstick.
Model rockets. My dad and I used to fly them every summer back in the '90s. I’m getting my nephews into it now, which means I’m also getting myself back into it. One of these days I’ll finally get that Big Bertha I had my eye on 25 years ago.
@dannybeans Model rockets are where it’s at. Made and launched them when I was a kid, would love to do it some more, but I don’t have the time or the space where I live now. I will just have to wait till I have kids and then do it with them.
@Salohcin714 When you do, make sure you check out the Clearance section on the Estes website. They almost always have some stupid-cheap deals - we’re talking a bundle of four kits, a launch pad and igniter for $25 plus shipping. They ream you on engines ($11 for a 2-pack locally argharghargh), but it’s still a relatively cheap way to get back into the hobby.
@dannybeans I have an uncle who use to fly model planes, but his club broke up as most of the guys turned to quadcopters. Now he’s doing model rockets. And not the little Estes kits. He has a 15 ft rocket taking up his dining room right now.
@dannybeans We used to love building and using model rockets, and we could launch them at a nearby park. Unfortunately the city passed a bad law that lumped model rockets in with fireworks and banned them within the city limits. Pretty much killed it off until we could drive.
We took some out into the desert later when we had drivers licenses. It was a lot of fun. I never did get my Estes USS Enterprise to fly well, though.
@duodec We have launched them for decades at my grandmother’s farm off a car battery. Sometimes they landed in the neighboring farm. That guy didn’t believe people had been to the moon. Of course he also planted poison ivy to enforce his no trespassing signs and was a John Burcher so I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised that moon landings were mythical (my kid told me, when young, that the “for all mankind” DVD of astronauts’ home videos of the moon was “all hollywood” thus not real LOL).
We used to think (as kids) if he found the rockets we couldn’t find after they landed on his farm that he’d believe in aliens.
One year my cousin’s husband came (he was involved for years with the Hubble telescope and said that if there was any evidence of aliens/their ships NASA would parade them up and down the washington mall as they’d be an instant budget bonanza - most credible reason I have heard why no aliens hidden away somewhere), anyway he did official NASA count downs for us when shooting them off. Most recently a different cousin’s girls (one who has since gone into engineering, she was into robotic teams in high school) have built the rockets.
@Kidsandliz We bought some cannon fuse from the back of Popular Mechanics (the green stuff that would burn underwater). It worked great for lighting the model rocket engines, fir the nozzles just right, though it cost us the joy of using the key and pressing the button (with home-made NASA countdown effects). Cheaper than the battery igniters too.
Yes… but not cars. Cuz… girl. I did the monsters (the Creature Feature and Chiller Theater guys) and dogs and horses. I loved, loved, putting them together and painting them. Do they still make them where you have to glue them and paint them? I’ve seen these snap together ones that are already colored that some of the kids have now and I wonder… why?
Although… I did a few airplanes too and I just recently ran across one I had gotten for my husband yrs ago of a P51D Mustang. I may do that one. It’s a bit more complicated than the kids models.
@Fuzzalini I keep seeing these awesome wooden dinosaur skeleton models when holiday shopping, but have never pulled the trigger. Maybe next year, especially if they (or similar) end up on Meh.
Model antique cars my dad would buy us as he liked them and we had an antique car that started its life in our household as a really, really old, used car bought from a little old lady who only drove it on Sunday which at the time was the only car my family owned. Now it is considered antique LOL
My immediate thought was “yeah I did, but I was always chicken I would screw up, so I only did the SnapTite kits” (no glue required). But after reading the comments from others, I had a few “oh yeah, now I remember” moments. I had a couple of the Aurora Universal Monster kits, and was big into the Estes model rockets for a while, and still have a few of those around the house somewhere. I also built a couple of the very first Star Wars kits by MPC on the heels of the original film (a Tie fighter and an X-Wing.) And I have built, flown and ultimately broken 100’s of Guillow balsa wood gliders (and their rubber-band powered propeller brethren) in my day.
(And a partial gallery of my collection: https://imgur.com/a/sfvLh There’s six more HGs missing that I built after taking those pictures. NO I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM.)
@ThomasF I “inherited” that PG Physalis pre-built from a friend of my then-partner in 2012; it must have been built at least 5 years before I got it. Thus, it’s not really part of the build list because it isn’t quite “mine”, though it is now since no one else wanted it. It wasn’t poorly built or anything, but I keep meaning to give it some more love and never do.
@ThomasF So you took model pieces from different kits to make your own robots? I never understood model kits. Legos and other construction kits, sure, because you could build whatever you wanted. With models, you had to follow exact instructions and go through all this work just to have a finished product that you could have bought pre-assembled off the shelf. I never really considered mixing and matching kits to make some kind of Frankenstein car…
Edit: oh, maybe it was @Kawa who did the mixing/matching… reading is hard.
@medz So I don’t do model kits that aren’t Gunpla (Gundam plastic models, geddit?), so someone who works on other kinds can speak to that but:
One of the joys is in the process of the work itself. It’s soothing to make pieces click into place, to follow directions to see a pile of parts become something recognizably cool.
There are plenty of modifications that can be done, but I at least don’t do that a lot, mostly because I don’t have the space. There’s a whole world out there of model modifications - paint, remaking parts, et cetera.
With Gunpla, at least, the build-it-yourself kits are more poseable and interesting as a toy than the pre-builts - more joints can move and what not. (And this only becomes more true as you spend more and more on a single kit - there are some seriously insane “perfect grades” out there with detail you couldn’t ship except in pieces.)
For me, Gunpla scratches the “collect things from a favorite fandom” itch as well as “structured creation”, like folding origami/knitting/crochet from diagrams other people wrote, or singing/playing instruments with songs you didn’t write yourself.
My friends up the street introduced me to the “build a model”, “play with the model”, “blow up the model with firecrackers” lifecycle that I believe all plastic models should be subject to.
@lehigh Firecrackers and lighter fluid. Military models, tanks, planes, then sure cars also. Hang them from a swing set with fishing line then go all Michael Bay on them. But I’m fine now, really.
I used to help my kid brothers build whatever models they got for birthdays and Christmases. Helped them with their homework, taught them to tie their shoes, tell time, and cook when they got old enough. There’s a reason why they still treated me with respect when they ended up being 12-13" taller than me.
/giphy models
Someone didn’t build that one correctly.
Why isn’t there a No, building models is dumb?
@twofivefive because no one would click it.
Does Lego count?
@Luko26 Yes. It’s a great gateway to building more complex and realistic models, but as long as you are beyond “let’s hook all the prices together at random” phase, it counts. Just like purposely leaving Legos scattered on your floor counts as Parkour training.
A few, not really as lasting hobby though
I am unable to come up with a battery/refrigerator comment in response to this poll. You hurt me tonight, Meh.
@shahnm
How about “model refrigerators (batteries not included)”?
Are you referring to my robot girlfriend?
@awk Watch out, I heard they can be programmed to destroy!
Um, why is there not a “no, I didn’t see the point” option? In my day, the only models out there for kids to buy were of military equipment of one kind or another. Hours of labor to assemble a hideous plastic miniature of a killing machine? Wasn’t it really just an excuse to sniff the glue?
@basketcase and huff paint.
@basketcase I was going to argue the “killing machine” remark, but the longer I think about it, the more true it becomes. Wait, I had a set of model buildings. That’s safe, right…
This has been a serious blow to my childhood.
@simplersimon That depends: were they bunkers? Medieval castles? If so, really just a place to put your killing machines. Though a model castle would be cool . . .
@basketcase skyscrapers, Sydney opera house, a Frank Lloyd Wright building. I have the castle in Sendai, Japan. Probably safe with buildings.
Between AMT and Big Daddy Eddy Roth, I had to deliver tons of newspaper to support my habit
I made weird shit with an old errector set and capsella. Does that count?
@Pantheist Oooh… still have our erector set in storage. What an idea…
I made paper dolls and designed clothes for them. They were models, so yeah! I did!
I started off with the Universal monsters (second release with glow-in-the-dark pieces but moved on to cats and other things. I even had a subscription that sent me a different one every month.
But in spite of my enthusiasm and practice I was never good at it. Glue fingerprints, spilled paint, and crooked decals marred my work.
Still, a few years back I visited Testor for work, and it was like a pilgrimage.
Girl so not much opportunity (wasn’t a “girl appropriate activity” just like my Mom didn’t want me running in HS less I get huge thighs and scare off the boys) but when I could I would help my younger brother w his.
When I had sons it took all my willpower not to do theirs for them (mostly Legos) so they could actually enjoy it.
@mollama That’s why you get your own Lego sets. Lots of great stuff out there (I’ve been partial to the Technic stuff recently). Then you can build together!
@mollama huge athletic thighs.
…
What your mother didn’t know about boys.
… or more likely she was tricksy. “Sure thing daughter o’ mine. Boys hate makeup.”
… or I guess you’re probably referring to the old “proper wife” style sexism, whatever that’s called. Actually, this is kind of depressing, now that I think about it.
Though… I suppose it’s convenient to have a well-defined path to social success if you’re a good fit for it.
@mollama I built a balsa wood model of a WW2 airplane. The guy at the model store didn’t think I could do it because I was a girl. Which is weird even if you believe in gender stereotypes. It came out really well. You should go out and get one.
@InnocuousFarmer I always have hated makeup. Especially lipstick- it freaks me out.
@Pantheist what freaks you out about it?
@RiotDemon Dunno- just looking at it makes me uneasy.
@Pantheist I feel tempted to attach a bunch of images of lipsticked lips, but I suppose I’ll refrain… This time.
@RiotDemon if you do that, I will stop looking at posts you tag me in. Ask @polksaladannie- I’m serious about that.
edit: Not that she ever wore lipstick, but she has seen my visceral reaction to it on other people.
@Pantheist @RiotDemon
Hehehe haha
@InnocuousFarmer meanie, haha. I was expecting a close up photo.
@RiotDemon because, it’s Poison Ivy. You know, Batman character with the plants and the http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DruggedLipstick
@InnocuousFarmer I know who it is. I meant when I saw that I was tagged, I just expected some close up lips because if I was going to torture someone that didn’t like lipstick, I’d find some seriously close up photos of bright lipstick.
But I see what you’re getting at.
@RiotDemon ahh, heh, I might’ve, but I was trying to restrain myself and be nice. Share the humor without traumatizing poor Pantheist.
Model rockets. My dad and I used to fly them every summer back in the '90s. I’m getting my nephews into it now, which means I’m also getting myself back into it. One of these days I’ll finally get that Big Bertha I had my eye on 25 years ago.
@dannybeans Model rockets are where it’s at. Made and launched them when I was a kid, would love to do it some more, but I don’t have the time or the space where I live now. I will just have to wait till I have kids and then do it with them.
@Salohcin714 When you do, make sure you check out the Clearance section on the Estes website. They almost always have some stupid-cheap deals - we’re talking a bundle of four kits, a launch pad and igniter for $25 plus shipping. They ream you on engines ($11 for a 2-pack locally argharghargh), but it’s still a relatively cheap way to get back into the hobby.
@dannybeans I have an uncle who use to fly model planes, but his club broke up as most of the guys turned to quadcopters. Now he’s doing model rockets. And not the little Estes kits. He has a 15 ft rocket taking up his dining room right now.
@simplersimon I’d love to do one of those someday, but I’ve got no place to actually fly it.
@dannybeans We used to love building and using model rockets, and we could launch them at a nearby park. Unfortunately the city passed a bad law that lumped model rockets in with fireworks and banned them within the city limits. Pretty much killed it off until we could drive.
We took some out into the desert later when we had drivers licenses. It was a lot of fun. I never did get my Estes USS Enterprise to fly well, though.
@duodec We have launched them for decades at my grandmother’s farm off a car battery. Sometimes they landed in the neighboring farm. That guy didn’t believe people had been to the moon. Of course he also planted poison ivy to enforce his no trespassing signs and was a John Burcher so I guess we shouldn’t have been surprised that moon landings were mythical (my kid told me, when young, that the “for all mankind” DVD of astronauts’ home videos of the moon was “all hollywood” thus not real LOL).
We used to think (as kids) if he found the rockets we couldn’t find after they landed on his farm that he’d believe in aliens.
One year my cousin’s husband came (he was involved for years with the Hubble telescope and said that if there was any evidence of aliens/their ships NASA would parade them up and down the washington mall as they’d be an instant budget bonanza - most credible reason I have heard why no aliens hidden away somewhere), anyway he did official NASA count downs for us when shooting them off. Most recently a different cousin’s girls (one who has since gone into engineering, she was into robotic teams in high school) have built the rockets.
@dannybeans Oh man, I don’t know how I forgot about those. Delta clipper was the shit, especially before they got rid of the big engines.
@Kidsandliz We bought some cannon fuse from the back of Popular Mechanics (the green stuff that would burn underwater). It worked great for lighting the model rocket engines, fir the nozzles just right, though it cost us the joy of using the key and pressing the button (with home-made NASA countdown effects). Cheaper than the battery igniters too.
If you apply enough model glue, the airplane model’s plastic kind of melts in a way that is interesting.
I attempted to get my hands on a few different models over the years. It’s never really worked out for me as they normally file restraining orders
Yes… but not cars. Cuz… girl. I did the monsters (the Creature Feature and Chiller Theater guys) and dogs and horses. I loved, loved, putting them together and painting them. Do they still make them where you have to glue them and paint them? I’ve seen these snap together ones that are already colored that some of the kids have now and I wonder… why?
Although… I did a few airplanes too and I just recently ran across one I had gotten for my husband yrs ago of a P51D Mustang. I may do that one. It’s a bit more complicated than the kids models.
@lseeber I also did models of animals. And dinosaurs, that was what I really liked. But no poll answer for that.
@Fuzzalini Oh yeah… I forgot about them. I did dinosaurs also.
@Fuzzalini I keep seeing these awesome wooden dinosaur skeleton models when holiday shopping, but have never pulled the trigger. Maybe next year, especially if they (or similar) end up on Meh.
/image wood dinosaur skeleton model
@Kawa https://sellout.woot.com/offers/4pk-smithsonian-3d-wooden-dinosaur-puzzle-1
Model antique cars my dad would buy us as he liked them and we had an antique car that started its life in our household as a really, really old, used car bought from a little old lady who only drove it on Sunday which at the time was the only car my family owned. Now it is considered antique LOL
My immediate thought was “yeah I did, but I was always chicken I would screw up, so I only did the SnapTite kits” (no glue required). But after reading the comments from others, I had a few “oh yeah, now I remember” moments. I had a couple of the Aurora Universal Monster kits, and was big into the Estes model rockets for a while, and still have a few of those around the house somewhere. I also built a couple of the very first Star Wars kits by MPC on the heels of the original film (a Tie fighter and an X-Wing.) And I have built, flown and ultimately broken 100’s of Guillow balsa wood gliders (and their rubber-band powered propeller brethren) in my day.
Holy cow, I guess I did a lot of models as a kid.
Uhhhhhhh yes.
@ThomasF Yessssssssssssssssss.
(And a partial gallery of my collection: https://imgur.com/a/sfvLh There’s six more HGs missing that I built after taking those pictures. NO I DON’T HAVE A PROBLEM.)
@Kawa Oh, you don’t want to see my mantle and display case…
And I like the angry-grandpa-faced GP02 glowering behind the GM.
@ThomasF I “inherited” that PG Physalis pre-built from a friend of my then-partner in 2012; it must have been built at least 5 years before I got it. Thus, it’s not really part of the build list because it isn’t quite “mine”, though it is now since no one else wanted it. It wasn’t poorly built or anything, but I keep meaning to give it some more love and never do.
@ThomasF So you took model pieces from different kits to make your own robots? I never understood model kits. Legos and other construction kits, sure, because you could build whatever you wanted. With models, you had to follow exact instructions and go through all this work just to have a finished product that you could have bought pre-assembled off the shelf. I never really considered mixing and matching kits to make some kind of Frankenstein car…
Edit: oh, maybe it was @Kawa who did the mixing/matching… reading is hard.
@medz So I don’t do model kits that aren’t Gunpla (Gundam plastic models, geddit?), so someone who works on other kinds can speak to that but:
For me, Gunpla scratches the “collect things from a favorite fandom” itch as well as “structured creation”, like folding origami/knitting/crochet from diagrams other people wrote, or singing/playing instruments with songs you didn’t write yourself.
@medz The first one I posted is a mix of two kits.
I did straight builds of the models, then some painted ones, and now that I’ve got most of the ones I wanted to build I’ve been making more customs.
My friends up the street introduced me to the “build a model”, “play with the model”, “blow up the model with firecrackers” lifecycle that I believe all plastic models should be subject to.
@lehigh My brother belonged to the “blow up things” club - although usually it was sand castles in the sandbox or at the beach.
@lehigh Firecrackers and lighter fluid. Military models, tanks, planes, then sure cars also. Hang them from a swing set with fishing line then go all Michael Bay on them. But I’m fine now, really.
@number51 at least you weren’t doing target practice with a gun…
@number51
@ruouttaurmind Now I just feel bad.
Guns. I made plastic models of antique guns. They were very impressive.
Yes, model cars mostly. And it devolved into building these:
Much more expensive and takes up all the room in the garage.
@ruouttaurmind But worth it…
This is my current one
@ragingredd I like the addition of the lighting.
@ruouttaurmind thanks i actually drilled out most of the port hole windows so you could see the light in the rooms
I used to help my kid brothers build whatever models they got for birthdays and Christmases. Helped them with their homework, taught them to tie their shoes, tell time, and cook when they got old enough. There’s a reason why they still treated me with respect when they ended up being 12-13" taller than me.