Reflections on 2019

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The year 2019 turned out to be a busy year for me. First year on Youtube, first year on Patreon, and the first time I’ve finished this many model kits… 39 of them to be precise.

I’m tired. 🙂

This year I tried new things, applied old things, and in the process I fell like I grew as a modeler. I think that is key to growing in the hobby – try new things, accept mistakes, welcome success, and realize you’re never really “there”. The road ahead always hold new things – techniques, tools, skills… whatever the case may be.

Aside from the fun I’ve had with plastic and paint, the most encouraging thing has been the friendships I’ve been blessed with through the hobby. All of the likes, comments, messages, and even some wonderful gifts have really meant so much to me. It blows my mind that people enjoy my work, and I never forget what a true blessing that is. It is both frightening and humbling. Thanks to everyone of of you.

I’m really looking forward to what 2020 holds in store! Happy New Year to all, and thanks for letting me be part of your hobby day!

6 comments

  2. Happy new year to you as well.

    This last year has been perhaps the best year yet for me overall (becuase the other ones weren’t that good). I now anxiously await for the arrival of a spray booth some time in January. When I started using an airbrush I had a good start I think. I spent time experimenting and trying out things, before trying to airbrush my first model, so I got the necessary practice for troubleshooting, testing and cleaning the airbrush. I even built and used my own spray booth (marginally ok), but I chose to toss it when I moved lately, and I did not get to order a new one until December this year.

    Some things to remember the next time I pick up the airbrush: (They say it ought to look similar to low fat milk.)
    1) Properly thin the paint (most important, somehow my paint looked thinned out, but it probably wasn’t)
    2) Adjust air pressure to distance to model, and always do some test painting using the newly thinned paint.
    3) Once again try working with gloss coats, ideally, getting a smooth result. It probably helps gently knocking down each layer of paint with very fine sand paper (sanding any raised edges will likely remove all paint), before starting adding the few layers of gloss coat. Adding a layer of varnish helps remove the toy-like look of the gloss coat, and also hide some of the imperfections in the gloss coat when the shinyness is dialed back to sating or more matte again.

    I hope to try out some weathering and use of both washes and pigments. I’ve only so far used basic Tamiya panel line accent color (enamel). So many things I want do do. Perhaps the most interesting, when it gets done, is scribing into primed paint (as opposed to scribing into plastic) for this ugh-raised-panel-line-but-still-cheaper-Viggen-kit in 1:48 scale.

    I managed to squeeze in a last effort purchase online yesterday, as I found a local store online selling some paint and pigments at a nice discount. Maybe they hoped I would buy a kit as well, but I couldn’t afford it. Last kit I ordered was a pleasant surprise, though item is still on its way: Kinetic F-16XL2 (two seater). Very nice price (for being a local store), and new molds, and presumably very good quality. Interestingly enough, the online store also had the Skunkworks version of the F-16XL (single seater), but I went with the Kinetic one, as it was newer, and the Skunkversion one is based on the Kinetic molds anyway.

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  3. Wow Jon, 39 is impressive by any standard of build output. I followed your advice and tried to reduce the stash by selling some, giving away some and mostly build! With that in mind I built 26 models this year – (a huge number for me) and I gave away or sold 12 additional. The stash was reduced and I enjoyed a lot of building.
    Thanks for your modeling advice – keep it up

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