I am one of those people who have many interests but is not actually that good at any of them. I love sport of pretty much any variety but am completely hopeless at every single one I have tried. It’s not that I lack a competitive drive, I have that in spades. It’s just that I have never been able to put into practice anything that I see others do. Now that I am in my 60s sporting prowess, or lack thereof, is no longer a defining issue.

This brings me round to the model building. Like sport, my enthusiasm for modelling outweighs my ability. I think about the hobby a lot, whether it’s the current build, the next build, the new kit on order, reading the latest issue of Airfix Magazine, or chatting online, model making is never far from my thoughts. A day without heading into the Shed of Beer and Plastic feels like a day lost, even if I am away in London at Lord’s.

Yet the unthinkable has been happening over the last few months. I have found it difficult to find the motivation to get to the bench, and when I do I largely stare into the void. As laid out in previous blogs, I have been slowly learning new techniques and making additions to the basic kit. I do want to get better, I do eventually want to take part in a competition despite the horror stories. This is driving me to take on increasingly difficult builds.

It is at this point I can trace the problem, I started HobbyBoss’s Katyusha.

I knew in advance it would be reasonably complex, that it would have to be prepared as four separate components to be all brought together at the end if I wanted to weather it properly. I built and primed the crew, got the base ready. Then onto the kit, my word a chasis for a vehicle this size is significantly more complex than fighting with an aircraft’s undertcarriage. Onto the cabin, with it’s myriad of things I knew I would break if attached before painting.

Finally got round to priming everthing and getting a coat of Russian Green on. And that’s where I stopped, I knew I wasn’t enjoying it, that I had a feeling of being overwhelmed by the huge number of processes that were yet to come. I decided to park it. I then spent a couple of days working out what to build next, no matter how many times I opened boxes and read instructions I couldn’t find a reason to build any of therm. I hasten to add that the stash numbers 70 full kits, and yet every box gave me a reason not to build.

Eventually I decided to do Hasegawa’s 1/48 Arado Ar234. I never build a model with a Nazi scheme (there will be a blog about this), and I had a what if in mind. What could go wrong, I have yet to come across a Hasegawa that gave me problems?

Of course, I found one, this was it. A week trying to get the wretched cockpit in place. Whole forward part of the jet is made of clear plastic, which never fits. Mercifully Christmas week came and rescued me from this hell.

Stewing over this terrible lack of progress I noted that it is often referred to as a loss of mojo in modelling groups. I feel that this term undersells the issue. As I am mostly retired, modelling is who I am (if you ignore all the other things I am), it’s what I do (if you ignore all the other things I do). I see my lack of progress as a failure, an inability to be a modeller, my standards have dropped so far I can’t even complete a build. How can I possibly hope to put any of my work into the very public arena of a model show competition. I came to terms as a teenager that I was never going to score an FA Cup Final goal for Plymouth Argyle, nor was I going to subdue a hostile West Indies bowling attack at Headingly. But here I am, in my 60s, and I can’t even put pieces of plastic together without it being a pile of poo.

Christmas week is over, I have a choice. I can bin these two projects, pretend they never happened. 8 weeks effort gone, never to be spoken of again. Alternatively I can just park them, though in the open, to return to when this crisis is over.

I have been here before, the cure is to get something done quickly, as I did back in the day when a Matchbox kit could be done and dusted in 6 hours. I use Tamiya’s 1/48 Armour range for this, always wheeled rather than tracked. A Dingo MkII was in the stash, just 2 sprues, fully assembled in one hugely enjoyable afternoon. With Mickey Mouse camouflage I knew the paint job would be a couple of days, so I got to work on a display base. Just 4 days to build a little scene. No fretting, no difficulty, no worry.

Energised I searched the stash for another simple build, and found a long forgotten HobbyBoss F4F3-S Wildcatfish. A simple paint scheme, some use of Ultimate Wash and within a week I have another winner.

I can do this, well I can if it is simple. I am energised again, but not entirely sure of confidence in my abilities. Do I have my mojo back, or am I merely passing through a crisis of confidence. I look at the stash, and notice that I have bought quite a few complex kits, will I build them or are they just going to hurt just like the high hurdles I couldn’t jump back at school?

In the meantime the Katyusha and Ar234 are on the shed table, taunting me to get back to them whilst I work away on an old Tamiya Zero.