I built the 1/72 aircraft kits, and some of the ships and armour too, when I was a kid and made the usual mistakes of using far too much cement, so that none of the moving parts could actually move, and my attempts to paint them never looked anything like the exciting picture on the box. I did build a couple of larger ship models in my teens - I think it was the Victory and the Revenge - and followed the instructions to "paint before assembly", which turned out better, but I lost interest. This was probably about the same time as I discovered that girls might have something going for them after all...
Jump forward a while, and I went back to building models when my own son was growing up. I did some reading and was amazed by how much research serious modellers did, to get all the details right, and a whole world of after market and modified/scratch built parts, air brushes, custom paint finishes and weathering etc, but never got really involved in this. The range of kits and accessories in South Africa was very limited, importing was expensive and problematical, and I just stuck to the basic stuff. My son preferred sport, and photography and guns/shooting took up a lot of my spare time, so that went by the wayside too.
Just recently, I've had thoughts about building one of the 1/35 tank kits. Don't know if I will yet, we'll see.
