Why I Model Starships

I was raised on Star Trek. I consider myself to be one of the lucky kids who when they got home from school got to watch The Brady Bunch, Gilligan’s Island and Star Trek on a daily basis. The Bradys bored me, Gilligan was good to eat a bowl of cereal to, but Star Trek required front of the couch viewing.

Even before the Horta or Klingons, I had a love of science fiction and desire to build things. Since we were dirt poor, I didn’t get many Legos, but I had enough to build some great spacecraft. I moved to cardboard and tape when I had nothing else and created a few masterpieces in my unbelievably messy room.

I was also raised when modeling was a common hobby. Plastic models were offered in every department store. I remember a teacher bribing me to perform with a tube of Testor’s Cement. If I did as I was told, I’d get the glue at the end of the year. This was first grade! I was a model junky.

I remember one Christmas, my brother McKeen, gave me a UFO model. It was built before lunch; actual construction time, 13 minutes. Star Trek ships were of course the prize of my collection, but at that early age, I couldn’t get my Enterprise to go together. Those damned pylons weren’t aligned right.

Then came Battlestar Galactica when I was in 5th grade. My best friend at the time, Mike Coffin and I started building Vipers and Cylons. I guess I was too excited about the hobby, because Mike actually started lying to me about his progress on a Cylon Raider so I’d stop asking him about it. He told me he spilled thinner on it and it melted away. A couple of weeks later, I visited his house and saw his nearly completed model. It was nice. I never understood the lie, but I did stop modeling for a while. There, you see Mike, you scarred my inner child! I hope you're happy! Actually, I moved away right after that and we got into Dungeons and Dragons like it was crack.

For years my modeling was directed to figure painting (see Warhammer 40K history). When Star Wars was hot for those few summers, I tried putting together a Tie Fighter and X-wing, but I didn’t know enough to do it right, though I did know enough to know that I wasn’t doing it right. The hobby of my youth was dropped for decades until last year.

Gaming had kept me in hobby/gaming stores. One day about two years ago, I saw a Halcyon Nostromo kit. It’s an out of print vinyl model of the ship that landed on windswept planet. I didn’t buy it right away, but I kept thinking about it. I finally went and bought it, much to my wife’s surprise when she went back and tried to buy it for me as a gift.

Then I got on the net and began researching science fiction models. I adore Babylon 5. I discovered Wolvie’s Shadow Crab kit and bought it. That’s when it really began. You see, I’m compulsive by nature. When I get into something, I generally go overboard. All my passions suck my time and money away and I collect things. I found out that starship modeling was an underground endeavor. Modeling on the whole was in serious decline and starships were the bastard children of the hobby. The two big model makers, AMT/Ertl and Revell/Monogram (note there used to be 4 big ones) weren’t making a single science fiction kit in 2000 even though Star Wars Episode 1 was still in everyone’s mind and Voyager was still on TV. Babylon 5 went into syndication and Sci-Fi movies were making a comeback.

With a newly found community of people who combine their love of Science Fiction with their love of modeling, I was gone. I started an ebay addiction of collecting all the Sci-Fi starship kits I could. Since they were all out of print, I figured they’d just get harder to find later.

I collected most of the Star Trek line and much of the Star Wars line. I bought every Babylon 5 kit I could.

My collection of unbuilt models began to pile up, particularly since I hadn’t built a single one. I promised myself that when I moved to my new home, Gaffa, I would concentrate on making starships.

So far, I’ve been working with duplicate kits I own to try to figure out this long neglected hobby. Once I feel confident about my skills, I’ll tackle the expensive ones. In the meantime, I’m creating and assembling pieces of art and trying to find places to display them.