What got you started into figure modelling/making

[Mark S]

For me it was a quite profound spiritual event.I experienced a visitation from a deceptively friendly looking angel who declared that from hence forth as atonement for my sins in a former life, I shall remain for the term of my current life a committed Figure Modeller!!...to suffer the on going expense of an ever expanding grey army for the rest of your mortal days.
Pretty freaky for a kid of just ten years old...

 

[billyturnip]

While on the subject of nostalgia anyone else remember doing these?

http://www.action-transfers.com/html/pbipb/pb_waterloo.shtml

http://www.action-transfers.com/html/pbipb/pb_lightbrigade.shtml
Roger

 

[ChaosCossack]

Omg, I haven't seen those things in years!
Over here, the page was an ice rink and the transfers were hockey players... very Canadian.
There were some historical and Sci Fi ones, but the hockey sheets were the big sellers.

Colin

 

[Tubby-Nuts2]

While on the subject of nostalgia anyone else remember doing these?

http://www.action-transfers.com/html/pbipb/pb_waterloo.shtml

http://www.action-transfers.com/html/pbipb/pb_lightbrigade.shtml
Roger

I vaguely remember those! or something damn similar! ... Most of mine where missing heads, & horses legs etc! the 'Wood-Chip', wall-paper in my room did not help matters! Which was very annoying to my Mother as I recall to my cost!

Mark

 

[billyturnip]

I recall some of mine were amputated thanks to not rubbing them down properly.

 

[Tubby-Nuts2]

Bloody typical! .. Most us have an 'Airfix', moment in life! .. However, Mark S, has to go and have a flaming 'Celestial Epiphany', moment!. I blame the heat down there! It cannot be good for the brain!


Mark

 

[JonP]

Same old Airfix kits and figures from Woolies as everyone else to start with Then as I got a bit older I found we had a real model shop in town; Ernest Berwick's which sold books and magazines too, I still have a few of the Almark books I got from there as well as the Airfix and Mil Mods! I'd always been interested in history, although I had to drop it for my 'O' levels, and the uniform plates in the Blandford books around at this time really caught my imagination. The Airfix Collectors Series and Multi-pose figures as well as Historex started to lure me away from the Tamiya kits; I was spending more time on the figures than the vehicles by then I think anyway. By my mid teens I had the honour of displaying some of my ACW figures, converted from German Multipose, in Berwick's window! Then I hit 16, got a FS1E and my modelling fell into decline as I discovered the world; well joined the RAF. Had very little time or space to do any painting whilst in the Air Force and Italian motorcycles don't run themselves and unfortunately beer isn't free either!! About 20 years ago I found myself with the time and space to do something a little more relaxing and bought some Tamiya and Dragon kits to play with, then some of the Hinchliffe Zulu war figures and found that I still enjoyed painting figures and I haven't really looked back since

 

[JonP]

While on the subject of nostalgia anyone else remember doing these?

http://www.action-transfers.com/html/pbipb/pb_waterloo.shtml

http://www.action-transfers.com/html/pbipb/pb_lightbrigade.shtml
Roger

I'd forgotten about those, think I had both of them!

and I had these too;

http://www.action-transfers.com/html/a_ranges/actionprofiles1.shtml

http://www.action-transfers.com/html/ActionProfiles/actionprofiles3.shtml

Not figure related I know

 

[Adrian Cowdry]

I started this thread asking how you got into figure modelling - I wanted to keep it relevant as this is Planet Figure. It is great reading all your experiences. I too started when I was five - an Airfix Gloster Gladiator. At seven my mum had to help me make the Airfix Catalina - well she made it and I cut the bits off the sprue - she did not know what a fuselage was. My dad had a love affair for the Catalina since she made that, last year I took my dad the MAFVA nationals at Duxford and low and behold there was the Catalina - some of the last photo's I have of my dad are by that Cat.

My dad encouraged me with my model making and last year I got the 1/32 HPH Catalina! It's not even started but my dad did see it in the raw. My mum was less encouraging when I was young as she was the one to help me...but she did like the way I did eyes on 54mm and above figures. I used a acupuncture needle for the pupils! Sadly both died late last year but I have them to blame for my "art" and "therapy". I have to agree with Bonehead it is the making and painting that I like most the subject has to appeal but if it's not so good in my eyes then it goes on the back of the shelf - if I am pleased with the results then I am happy to show it off at shows.

In the early 1970's I got my first Tamiya kit and like most here I made models - all sorts of models, Aurora Monsters, Cars, Planes and tanks but I really never got into ships and boats.

I still make models across the board but figures certainly are my favourite - I think I like seeing the figure become animated - if that makes sense and I still love the horror subjects which are best termed in the garage kit side of things 1/6 scale resin monsters.

Hope there are more stories to come.

 

[theBaron]

I got to figure painting from scale modeling, too. My first kit ever was a Model T, built when I was 5. My first figures were the ones included in Monogram and Revell kits, then Airfix HO and 1/72 figures. I left the hobby behind temporarily when I went off to college, but came back a couple of years later, via homecast metal German toy soldiers. That led me to metal figures, and eventually, back to scale modeling, full circle.

Prost!
Brad

 

[ChaosCossack]

http://www.action-transfers.com/html/actionreplay/ar4_gk121.shtml

See I told you they had hockey transfers

Colin

 

[tonydawe]

I started modelling when I was 5 years old. Started by building Airfix 1/72nd scale aircraft very badly and delighted in painting them gloss chocolate brown. Glued my fingers together on several occasions. Graduated to Tamiya 1/35th figures and AFV's when I was 9 or 10 and became an armour modeller. At that time my family were living at the Puckapunyal Army Base in Victoria, home of the 1st Armoured Regiment and its squadrons of Centurion Tanks (later replaced by the Leopard Tank).

One Christmas I opened the wrapping on my present a couple of days early to see what I was getting from Santa - Tamiya Willy Jeep and Trailer - yeah. Imagine Mum and Dad's surprise on Christmas morning when I opened my present and showed them the kit - which was already built and painted and put back in the box - presumably by Santa's elves.

I spent my weekends at the Puckapunyal Tank Museum, where I earned pocket money washing the tanks and spending hours admiring the huge dioramas and model tanks on display. I spent all my pocket money at the Museum's shop where I bought model kit after model kit. I gradually realised that I was buying the kits which had the most number of figures in them because I enjoyed painting the figures best. I also enjoyed shooting those figures with my air rifle from a distance of 25 metres, which got me into a lot of trouble with our neighbours.

I caught the figure modelling bug in earnest in the early 1990's when the first Verlinden 120mm figures arrived in Australia. Been hooked on figures ever since. The rest is on my VBench.

 

[balder]

I started building models with my dad when I was around 4 or 5. We built Aurora, Pyro, Lifelike kits like dinosaurs, birds, animals all painted up with that "awesome" gloss Testor's paint. I have a photo framed in my workshop of us working on an Aurora black bear kit.

As a teen I worked on Star Wars kits and got into painting Dungeons and Dragons figures. I started making dioramas with the figures. I remember a mines of moria dio I did. I started sculpting figures using plumbers putty in junior high and high school.

I built and painted garage kit for many years and got into smaller scale kits because 1/6 scale garage kits take up so much room! I picked up a lot of 120 mm kits from VLS and Squadron in the US and my local hobby shop (now closed for many years unfortunately) starting maybe 10 to 15 years ago. I haven't stopped since.

Gerald

 

[badger]

my first kit was an airfix 1/72nd scale stuka, and i still remember how proud i was that i had created something from a bag of bits / badger

 

[Jamie Stokes]

I remember building a (moulded in blue plastic!) BF 109.

I have fond memories of constantly flipping through a Revel catalogue, with all the dioramas and I thought 'wow'

Years roll by, and while browsing the web, stumbled onto Planet Figure.....

Lurked for a while, then joined up on May 2008.

PF is still good for feedback (when you can get it, advice can be a spotty sometimes), I present 2 of the same figure, with a few years of (erratic) practice and experimentation in between the two.

 

[martin tabony]

Building and painting model kits like everone else. Then in the local library I discovered a book by Maj. Roy Diley showing how to convert Airfix racing car crew into WW2 figures, I was hooked. I continued making figures while I was in the army. By 1984 I was sculpting more than I was using from a kit!

Martin

 

[Adrian Cowdry]

Jamie

like both Japanese busts - but the first photo is extremely subtle compared to the second. Like both.

Martin

where can I see your sculpts?

 

[legend69]

I was watching this video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVKJXft3gHc

and somewhere appeared one of the main reasons I got into modelling and remained in this hobby....Beatties in Holborn !!!

 

[Tubby-Nuts2]

Lol! How good was that clip! ... lots of memories! I remember at least 98% of them! All the games, and TV! .. 'Monkey', used to be my favourite! Dogtanian, Inspector Gadget, Didn't see 'The Water-Margin' though!

Thanks for the memories!

Mark

 

[Gunthwaite]

As for many, my interest in figures was a natural progression from buying Airfix kits in the 1960s. Robby Gibson's series in Airfix Magazine on converting the soft plastic HO/OO figures hinted at what might be possible and Bill Hearne's articles in the earliest editions of Scale Models were inspirational. There was also an active modelling/wargaming club locally (Lichfield) and Nick Larkin's shop Imperial Modelling which fuelled enthusiasm.

Al