Greetings all.
Like most people I started modelling when I was a kid, though admittedly it was more my Grandad building the kits whilst I watched, or him helping me greatly when I got a bit older and able to use a knife safely. Most of these kits took an accidental crash landing whilst playing with them. Growing up I tried a couple of times to get back into the hobby I loved as a kid but each time I gave up due to issues, mostly due to lack of knowledge.
After my Grandad passed I found a framed box art in his loft of a Hasegawa F4U-4, Corsair's were his favourite plane and I have many memories of things to do with Corsairs growing up. This lead to me buying the same kit and trying to build it as a memoriam of sorts, despite the mistakes and issues I had an absolute blast and with the ability to find so much online I had a miles better attempt than anything I tried as a teenager. I then immediately bought a second kit, a Revell F-105 which very nearly made me quit the hobby out of frustration as I had both bought a fairly poor kit and also bit off more than I could chew, but over the span of the year I had an on-off attempt at finishing it and when I eventually did I decided that I should try again with something a bit easier and got an Airfix Spitfire. I really enjoyed this kit, so much so I bought an airbrush halfway through and never finished it because I wasn't sure whether to airbrush finish it or continue brush painting it.
Since then I've fell in love with the hobby, I started an Instagram account @scalerambush where I got more and more confident in my builds and sharing them, and nowadays modelmaking is my main hobby with lockdown providing a huge amount of time to sink into it. Since getting the airbrush in 2019 I've built 21 out of my 23 models, 13 of which being built in 2020 alone due to amount of free time I had, all of them being in 1/48 scale. I've also dabbled in miniature painting and built a couple 1/144 kits as side projects.
I mostly build WWII aviation, my main goal is to build a 1/48 representatation of every Corsair variant but this is a very long term goal. I generally prefer building aircraft wheels up which often requires modifications to the kit, aircraft were designed to fly so I just think they look better that way.
A few things:
I prefer building in pairs as it let's me bounce between projects when stuck in a bad point. Often times even building the same kit, but at different points, can eliminate some of the frustrations. After all this is a hobby not a job and as such pushing against a brick wall of troubles is required at times, but sometimes moving onto another kit and having a break for a day or two prevents the struggle from being as bad.
My to-do list is mostly Corsairs, but my stash is growing a bit larger than I'd like so I'm clearing through it slowly before I add a few more Corsairs to it.