First time I’m doing this ‘year in review’ thing, decided to give it a try.
Turns out, I only completed two models this year, mostly thanks to the fact that sailing ships take enormous amount of time to finish.
I track the days I worked on the models, but not the amount of time, which of course varies from 20 minutes to multiple hours. I can work on more than one model in a single day, so adding those numbers up is kinda misleading.
Lady Nelson (78 days)
I spent most of my modeling time this year on a beautiful Lady Nelson cutter by Amati. I’m quite proud of how it turned out, and consider it to be my best wooden model to date.
FT-17 work continued (4 days)
I resumed work on this cute tank, really looking forward to finishing it this year.
Unfortunately, work stood in the way - I simply didn’t have the creative capacity left to spend on weathering after brain-wrecking working hours.
And overall I’ve noticed that after a very hard day at work normally I still can find the energy to work on construction part of the build (woodworking, assembling, even tying knots).
But at the same time it’s much harder to even make myself start working on anything more ‘artistic’ (painting, chipping, filters/weathering).
Which of course means that when I’m overloaded at work I simply cannot work on finishing stages of plastic kit builds, which explains why I have this FT-17 sitting since 2018, and Airfix Hurricane ready for painting since 2019.
And wooden kits allow me to still keep modeling, thanks to the minimal amount of painting involved in most of the builds I worked on.
Leudo (39 days)
So I found myself unable to work on FT-17 weathering thanks to enormous load at work, and picked this kit that had no paint job planned whatsoever.
Little did I know that the build would be so frustrating, and instructions so poor.
I still managed to finish it right before Christmas, but mostly out of sheer stubbornness, and unfortunately long stretches of this build were simply not enjoyable.
Also I have 8 barrels to make from this kit, but it looks pretty good without them, so I’ll work on them along other builds.
Anyway, finished model looks quite nice, and despite all the frustration it pleases me to have it built thanks to the unique civic subject. Just need to find time to take photos…
HMS Terror work continues (1 day)
Building sailing ships is not all unicorns and rainbows, and this HMS Terror build is a good example of what can be really hard about them.
I’m currently at the infamous ‘shrouds and ratlines’ stage with the Terror, and has been for the last year or so.
As of now, the foremast with all the yards is dressed and has shrouds and ratlines installed on all but top level. But working on shrouds and ratlines here almost broke me.
You see, with Terror being built as a bomb vessel, it is designed to be very sturdy, with rigging being no exception. Each mast has 6 to 13 shrouds each side, with foremast having 10 which meant that each ratline needed 10 knots.
Believe me - that’s a lot of knots, and it’s very boring and repetitive, I don’t think a lot of modelers enjoy this part. It’s a chore, and when I was over with it for the foremast I just couldn’t go on.
I put the project on the shelf in the end of 2020, but this year I had enough of a break from it, and started to work on remaining masts.
As of now, mainmast and mizzenmast are both ready to be dressed and installed, which will again bring me to the dreaded ratlines stage, but now I think I’m more mentally prepared.
Conclusion
Not a bad year modeling-wise, even though crazy amount of IT work definitely barred me from working on plastic kits. Hopefully I’ll be able to catch up on those in 2022.
In particular, I wanted to build 1/350 Varyag for few years now, and have the model along with Eduard PE and wooden deck in stash.