As 2023 races to a close, I find myself looking to 2024, and what I want to accomplish. I don’t particularly subscribe to resolutions. I hate goal-setting at work. But I think it can be useful, especially after a year of systemic breakdown, to have some kind of direction in mind.
Besides, from bitter experience, I tend to do best when I can plant some kind of flag. Give me a fixed variable and I can build a world around it.
So with that in mind, I’m going to introduce my focus points for 2024. These aren’t resolutions. They aren’t goals. They aren’t really specific enough for that. They’re more directional. They’ll inform how I navigate my modeling year. What kinds of projects I take and why.
Unorthodox subjects
In the past few months, I’ve noticed that I’m finding myself profoundly bored by most modeling subjects. I may like the subject a great deal. I may find someone else’s build extremely well executed. But I’m not grabbed. Woo, another 8th Air Force P-47. A Spitfire. Neat. How about that Panther? Sure!
Looking back, I think the stirrings of this are what threw me off on the F-4Gs. Love the aircraft, but that’s not enough right now.
I was going to say I want to do weird shit. But it’s not weird per se. Some of it is just…unorthodox. Miniart’s G506 Tow Truck, for example. Or their Water Buffalo water tank trailer. Nothing particularly weird about those. But they can be taken in so many directions. There’s a freedom in them.
If I do want to take on a normal subject, I’m increasingly veering into putting that normal subject in an unorthodox context. For example, this F-5F being delivered to a museum, where it will be reassembled.
Or these A-6 Intruders being dumped to create an artificial reef:
Will I tackle either of these in 2024? Not likely. But they’re representative of where my brain is at.
Aircraft in 32nd
Back in 2013 or something like that, I basically abandoned 1/48 scale. And didn’t return until tackling the Tamiya F-14 in 2017. I didn’t pick up another 1/48 prop until 2020.
I’ve built several since then. Yet when I look back at the builds that bring the most joy, it’s not them. It’s not the Eduard P-51. It’s not the Tamiya P-47M. It’s the Trumpeter Intruder and the P-40F and the Tamiya -1D Corsair.
1/32 is more my jam. And I think it’s time that I just embrace that, ya know?
So 2024. No 1/48 aircraft. And especially no 1/72 aircraft.
I don’t really know what that means for jets yet. I’m not about to go after a 1/32 F-4 or anything. But I have been contemplating a 1/32 MiG-21 Lancer-A for some time.
Introduce project classes (and enforce them)
I’ve had a bad habit over the past several years of starting something with the intent to “speed run” through it, only for it to spin out of control.
I need a better kind of traffic system. That I can actually stick to.
So here’s the deal.
I’m going to limit myself to FOUR projects on the go at any given time.
Two primary projects. These I can easily juggle because one may be waiting for 3D parts, or waiting for something to cure. Or, assuming I’m at different stages, I may feel more like detailing one night and weathering another night.
Right now I have two primary projects going on. One of them I’m calling Object 666, a what-if Soviet super-heavy tank that’s a frankenstein of the Border Models Apocalypse tank, a Resinscales turret, and lots of custom 3D work. I’m having an absolute blast with it, but all the 3D stuff is making it a long haul project.
The other project I’m not revealing yet, other than it’s armor, and it’s working out to be a real piece of cake.
The third project I’m calling a tinkering project. This is something I’m mostly just fucking around with. Maybe it’ll graduate to a primary project. Maybe not. I like to toss together kits while I’m working, since it lets me background process stuff without getting totally distracted by the interwebs. Maybe it’ll involve 3D stuff, maybe not.
I already have a ton of these, but I’ve always had this ideal of “yeah I’ll totally finish this” and my record is abysmal. I think giving myself permission to just tinker will make these weigh on me less. And maybe then I’ll actually finish a few!
Fourth is what I’ll call a light project. Something small and contained. Something I can’t turn into a whole big production. Now small doesn’t mean simple or fast. Small can be a figure, and those can take me forever. But I’m thinking of things like the Miniart G-527 Water Buffalo. Or like, a ResKit Storm Shadow missile. A fun detailing and painting and display exercise but not something I’ll be stuck in for months.
Now if I can actually stick to any of this…
3D all the things
I’ve been playing with Fusion 360 off and on for a while now. But it’s only in the last few months that it has really clicked. I hate the whole “learning curve” concept because that’s not how learning really works for me. Progress for me, whether it’s in exercise or learning a new piece of software, seems to come not at all, until it comes very suddenly.
Something about Fusion unlocked for me, and since then I’ve been designing all kinds of silly shit, from tracks to mantlets to Wildcat wheels to a rear deck grille. And I’ve been loving it.
And…I want to do more. I want to design additional detail parts. And environmental things. And even whole kits. I’m working on two right now.
It’s a side of the hobby that I’m finding increasingly fulfilling in its own, totally separate way. So…stay tuned I guess on that front.
Do people things
The two standouts of my modeling year last year were attending Nats and attending a Jim Rice painting workshop in April. Entirely because of the people.
This year I’m planning to do some more of that. ModelFiesta in February, hopefully Winter Blitz in College Station in January, and Nats in Madison in July. I’d hoped to maybe put SMC into consideration, too, but that’s a lot to take on. So Madison will have to do.
But yeah, I love that my best moments are grabbing meals with friends, or sitting around in the hotel bar bullshitting during the awards ceremony. All the nastiness and bad blood around the Nats contest is a definite downer, so I guess I’m fortunate (and IPMS is VERY fortunate) that the contest doesn’t even clear the top 20 reasons I go.
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Yeah. That’s kinda what’s cooking for 2024 for me. What about you? Got any best of intentions that will surely be cast aside within weeks of the new year?