The 1:72 scale variable Valkyrie model by Bandai, which I built in high school.
The 1:72 scale variable Valkyrie model by Bandai, which I built in high school.
Since I have a YouTube channel that gravitates around plastic models, I thought I would give a bit of a history of how I got into modeling in the first place. This conversation comes up during my discussions with people, so I guess I can just point them to this for a history.
It started when my dad introduced me to HO scale model trains for one Christmas. I was totally blown away. I don't know if he just found a ton of stuff on clearance or something, but he had bought an engine or two, several cars, a length of track, a transformer to power it, and a model of the train station in Rico, Colorado. Our house had a fourth bedroom we called “the den" that we only used for storage, but Dad had locked the door, saying that he was working on a special project. Dad had made a circular test track for the model train. That year I became a huge train nut. We had grandiose plans on how we would make a wonderful train set because we would learn the art of scale modeling together, but that never happened. The actual model-making experience started with that flimsy model of Rico Station. It came with a lighting option, so we lit it. I was not impressed with how the light shone straight through the plastic. But that did not dissuade me, at least in the short-run. I began building other buildings. Some came pre-painted and pre-weathered, others didn't. It was then when I got used to the smell of Testors enamel paints and the citrusy smell of Testors toxic model cement. I'm told you can't even buy that stuff anymore in the USA, but I am certainly nostalgic for those scents. They remind me of my childhood.
Back in the '80s, there wasn't a lot of ways for me to learn how to model well. Modeling was primarily a heuristic approach, and I just experimented. One thing I figured out on my own was to smear white enamel paint across the red brick walls of a building, and then wipe off the excess with enamel thinner. The flat, white paint remained in the cracks, creating the look of mortar between the cracks. I didn't know it at the time, but this was a crude wash.
Mom got me a subscription to Model Railroading magazine. Eventually, though, I lost interest.
When I was in the 5th grade or so, around 1986, my uncle Gary invited me over to his apartment for a day and introduced me to World War II scale modeling. He bought me a Spitfire to build. I can't remember what company made it, but that was my introduction to the hobby. I believe it was a 1:72 scale plane. I think he was learning the hobby himself. I don't remember him teaching me anything about thinning the paints, so basically I didn't so much paint the plane as merely smear Testors enamel paint around on the plastic surface. No priming or anything of the sort. It was really primitive, but I was excited. I took it home and after the paint had dried, Dad showed me how to apply the waterslide decals. Wow, that was such a cool experience for me!
The next model I built was a P-38 Lightning. It's double fuselage was my favorite of all the WWII fighter planes. Dad helped me with the building of this one. It more or less turned out fine, and again I gained experience with the waterslide decals. I believe the scale was 1:48, and I seem to remember the company being Monogram, but I cannot be sure.
With the experience of building two models, my next plane model was a P-51 Mustang. It was a larger size, so I am pretty sure it was a 1:48 scale. Once again, I was smearing paint onto the model right from the bottle, rather than actually brushing it on. I was not thinning the paints at all. I remember at one point, I had accidentally spilled the silver Testors enamel by knocking over the bottle. Fortunately I had newspaper under my work area, so I didn't spill the paint directly onto the kitchen table. That kit came with a pilot and a couple of ground crewmembers. I can't remember the manufacturer at all.
During my junior high years, studying about WWII and reading period fiction of that era became a hobby of mine, so building these WWII planes went hand-in-hand with that. I never got into armor modeling, though. Just fighter planes.
Later, Mom bought me a Stealth Fighter model that did not seem to require any painting. I was relieved, because it came molded in black plastic. I certainly remember this model! It was the 1:48 scale F-19 Stealth Fighter by Testors. Oh wow, it looked so science fiction-y! This model was released in 1986, before the actual F-117 Stealth Fighter was actually unveiled to the public. It was based on conceptual artwork of what the plane might look like. It was so sleek and teardrop-shaped that I was disappointed when I first saw the actual F-117 fighter because it was so angular-looking. With only very minimal painting, I put this model together easily and felt good about myself. Come to think of it, I would like to repurchase this model and build it again someday.
In 1989, my friend Matt had re-introduced me to Robotech. He was borrowing the Robotech series on VHS from a friend of his. These were the crummy videos in which the entire Macross saga was heavily edited and crammed onto six VHS cassettes. Anyhow, he had also borrowed the Robotech RPG books as well as the Robotech artbooks from this friend of his, and this is what launched my nerddom into anime fandom. Up until then, I always wondered why some of my favorite cartoons growing up all seemed the same and yet so different from other cartoons: Speed Racer, Voltron, Robotech, G-Force, and Mighty Orbots. One of the Robotech Art Books gave an introduction to the world of anime and this is how I learned that they were all shows from Japan. From then on, I wanted to absorb as much anime and manga as possible. I became an "otaku" nerd, if you will pardon me using that word.
In high school, that same friend had bought a plastic model of a robot from an anime called "Gundam." I had heard about Gundam, and although I was not very familiar with the show, I knew that it was a big thing in Japan. I was really impressed with the model. The Gundam's hands were actually articulated, with an independently articulated index finger for wrapping around the trigger of its rifle. That really blew me away. I said to Matt, "Wouldn't it be cool if there were such models for the Veritechs from Robotech?" (I knew they were called "Valkyries" in Japan, but I was still stuck on the American version. It wasn't until much later that I realized that Macross is a one-way street: once you've seen it, you just can't go back to Robotech and take it seriously.) He replied with, "I'm sure there are." He had bought the Gundam at a local hobby store called Hobby Bench. I went there to go look, but I could not find any Macross models there (or Gundam for that matter). Keep in mind that this was like in 1991 or so, way before the Internet and even before I started using BBSes to reach out to fellow SF and anime fans like myself. By this time, it had been a couple of years since I had built a model. I started doing some investigating and learned that there were, in fact, MANY Macross models made, by several different companies.
Later in my high school days, I met this guy named Ry who was visiting our church. He was about twenty, and he noticed that I was carrying a Robotech novel with me. I would read books while my parents talked to people because I had no friends there. That church was puny, and the only kids my age wanted to have nothing to do with a nerd like me. So here this guy was, who looked like a heavy metal guitarist with his shirt unbuttoned way down, long frizzy black hair and tattoos all over his arms, coming up to me, a nerdy high school kid, to talk. Ry was a huge anime fan, and having grown up in Boston, he had access to tons of neat Japanese stuff at the comic book stores in his area. He knew quite a lot about Macross and Gundam, as well as several other similar anime series. He gave me the lowdown on Macross models when I asked him about it. He said that the best way to find Macross models is through mail order. I told him I wanted to buy a transformable Valkyrie, and he said that the best one was by Bandai. After some sleuthing, I had discovered Newtype Hobbies and Toys in the Bay area in California. I got their catalog and it opened up a whole new world to me. I saw that there were garage kits of the characters from Bubblegum Crisis. I had no idea what a "garage kit" was, but it just blew me away. There were even models from Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind! I wish I could have saved those catalogs from back then for nostalgia purposes. Anyway, I saved up some money to buy the Bandai 1:72 scale variable Valkyrie model from Newtype, and Ry helped me build it. He helped me get over the fear of building a Japanese kit with the non-English instructions. It was Roy Fokker's VF-1S, so it required very little painting. I actually still own this model, even though it really wasn't made very well.
In high school, I built a few more SF-themed models. I was given the AMT 3-piece Adversary Set of the Romulan Warbird, the Ferengi Marauder, and Klingon Bird of Prey. (These kits are now sold separately for some reason.) Again, these required a lot of painting, and I painted them straight from the paint bottles. The colors were alright, however I was not satisfied with how they turned out. At least they provided some experience with trying to paint detailed surfaces, particularly with the BOP.
I also built my first Star Wars kit: the crappy MPC snap kit of the X-Wing Fighter. Ugh, this model sucked. I couldn't get the wings to align properly, so they were crooked. Since the kit came molded in gray plastic, I did not paint it and instead just applied the decals, so I was happy about that. The good thing about the experience of this kit was that I had experimented with weathering by putting some black enamel paint onto a paper towel, squirting thinner onto it, and smearing this across the X-Wing's fuselage. I was pleased with how dirty the ship turned out, at least.
If I recall correctly, the last model I built as a student was a 1:100 scale ARII Macross VF-1J Millia Battroid. I smeared gloss red Testors enamel paint all over it, as well as gloss white. I applied it too thickly in many places, and thus I lost detail. Although I kept it on my book shelf, I was not satisfied with it and I was becoming discouraged with modeling. I gave up the hobby for several years after this.
I lived in Himeji from 2000-2002. While I did not get back into modeling at that time, I would still visit the local hobby store. There was an underground shopping plaza to which the underground entrance to the station opened up to, and in there was a hobby store. I would mostly buy gachapons that were lined up in front of the store, but of course I would go inside to look around at the toys and models. In the display case were completed garage kits of the ships from Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and it was my favorite anime by then. This was really making me want to try getting back into the modeling hobby, and I actually bought a Patlabor model kit at that store. I also bought a small, 1:170 scale Macross Valkyrie by ARII for a few hundred yen at the Mandarake in Osaka. Although I didn't build these at the time, I was anticipating to someday get back into the hobby.
So in October 2005, I finally decided to try getting back into modeling. I was still hesitant to paint models much, and I did not know much about airbrushes at the time. But Mayu really likes AT-ATs (she calls them “doggie horses" and thinks they're cute), so she had bought the AMT AT-AT kit from Hobby Bench and asked me to build it for her. From there, my journey back into plastic models has been fairly well-recorded on my sci fi plastic model gallery. I mostly made a bunch of Gundam models because they come molded in pre-colored plastics for a long time. Eventually I bought an airbrush and started practicing with that.
Then after our daughter Ulan was born in 2008, I had to shelf the hobby for a few years, just when I was starting to get the hang of airbrushing. During that time, all I did was paint some anime figures and such that had come with the kits I had. I rarely ever got my airbrush out for painting, because I didn't want to go through all the work in preparing the paints for airbrushing and such, only for Mayu to call to me to help with something for the baby.
In January 2011, one of my New Year's resolutions was to get back into modeling, and to become good at it. I wanted to build a real model, and not just another Gundam model that any kid can build. I wanted to build a 1:24 scale Honda Fit by Tamiya, and it would be the first car model I'd ever made. I knew that I could not do it alone, so I started videoing the process so that I could upload it to YouTube and direct people to the videos for advice. I didn't expect anybody to seek out those videos on their own, so I was surprised with the interest those videos generated. The first video currently has over 130,000 views, and a search for “plastic model build" on YouTube will likely result in this video. I've no idea why it has become so popular, especially since I didn't even know what I was doing at first. I've been told by people that they enjoyed the videos because of my humble attitude, my transparency when it comes to making mistakes, and that they can relate to my experience for making a serious model and for the first time, have it turn out very well-made.
Since then, I have moved back to Japan. Not only that, but I live near Shizuoka city, which is essentially the plastic capital of the world and home to Tamiya, Bandai, Aoshima, Fujimi, Platz, and nearby Hasegawa and Sweet. I was pretty amazed once I reached 100 subscribers, but now I have over 2,000 subscribers. If you go back far enough on my channel, you will see that I started out primarily showing off stuff like Japanese toys and video games. The subscription base really took off once I started doing videos of modeling. I never really cared how many people watched my videos to begin with, but only just cared that at least a few people appreciate the videos I make. I've become a window of sorts to the modeling scene here in Japan, I guess people watch my videos for a glimpse of modeling in Japan, and to see the different types of tools, paints and such that are difficult to find where they live.
Since I have moved back to Japan, I must say that it is a very exciting place to live, especially in terms of modeling. While I hear stories of brick-and-mortar hobby shops disappearing in places like North America and the UK, they continue to flourish here in Japan. There was one place in Komagane, Nagano Prefecture I used to shop at because my in-laws live in that area, but it went out of business a couple of years ago. Many times when I went there, the shelves were pretty sparsely stocked. I think it may have to do with the aging demographic in rural mountain towns like Komagane. Come to think of it, there aren't a lot of model shops in Nagano Prefecture, outside of the large cities. Models are usually found in department stores, and the selections are small. Where I currently live, however, both dedicated model shops and stores with a great modeling selection can be found.
While I grew up with the smell of Testors paints and glue, children in Japan have a different experience. They primarily focus on Bandai's Gundams. While these are essentially plastic models, the parts are snap-fit, come molded in different colors, and stickers are provided instead of waterslide decals. These models are essentially like action figures that you build yourself, and do not require a lot of skill. So while I was disheartened by messy paint jobs as a kid, these kids don't bother with painting and are pleased with the models they build, despite the lack of real effort necessary to build one.
Being an English teacher, I get to know a lot of these kids. Sometimes I will find a boy who enjoys building real models by companies like Tamiya, such as car models or airplanes. I wish there were more, but at least here in Japan there is a focus on the modeling hobby by people of all ages. It isn't just viewed as something kids do (like many in America seem to believe), but that it is a hobby for adults as well. So, it doesn't have the same social stigma as it does in America, and the hobby seems to be more common.
So this is essentially my history with the hobby. I started making videos of me learning how to build models in order to have people see what I am doing (and doing wrong), and to give me advice. It has helped me to become better at the hobby. I never expected many people to take notice to what I was doing.
Actually, Harold Nicoll, who hosts "The Collector's Show" on WebTalkRadio.net took notice of my YouTube channel and invited me for an interview on his show. You can listen to the interview here. He wanted me to talk about Japanese model companies that handle licensed properties, under the assumption that Western model companies no longer make model products for licensed tie-ins. Lego is all about licensing, with Star Wars, Spider-Man, Harry Potter, etc. Well, I took the time to speak of the Western model companies that are making licensed models, but never got around to talking much about the Japanese companies that do this. The model section in any given hobby shop here in Japan devotes roughly half (or more) of its floor space to licensed kits, especially Gundam. So the conversation didn't go quite the way I expected it to, but it's worth a listen, anyway. Harold's blog article on the show is located here, along with my response to the show.
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