Unfinished Business

Someday I'm going to have to actually finish something. I've always been the kind of modeler who is more likely to start something new than to finish something old, but lately this trait has really gotten out of hand. I build on something for a while, I leave it half-built in the open box, and I move on to something else. I'm not sitting at my workbench, but offhand, I know that in work I have five dinosaurs, two Airfix tank transporters (maybe three, it's hard to tell), two 1/24th scale drag cars, a WC63 truck, a Sukhoi Su-15 Flagon, a Roman trireme, two 54mm figures, a USAAF ambulance, a Moebius Imhotep, a... well, you get the idea.

How does this happen? In the fussy British model magazines I read, people often seem to abandon (or at least shelve) projects because of a lack of reference material or lack of suitable detail parts. The editors often speak of throwing away (or "binning") entire models because of a flaw in one part or another. That's not why I give up on projects. I enjoy making historically accurate models, but if I can't make it accurate, I'll make it inaccurate; it's not that big a deal to me (I'm fond of putting strange fantasy markings on airplanes, such as Belgian cockades on an F-16XL, or marking a natural-metal Mirage F1C for USAF aggressor service).

My problem, really, is that I like building more than I like painting. If you look at my collection of half-built stuff, you'll see that they're almost all stalled at the same basic point - the point at which I have to load up the airbrush. There's nothing wrong with my airbrush (a well-used Testors pre-Aztek Model Master) or compressor, nor is there anything particularly wrong with my technique (though I rarely spray acrylics and prefer Model Master enamels). And I like the actual airbrushing itself. I just don't like getting the thing set up to spray properly, and I don't like all the cleaning up afterwards. Every now and then I get the airbrush set up and paint a whole bunch of things at once, or I figure out a way to fake things with spray cans, but increasingly, stuff just sits in that ready-to-paint limbo.

I'm also a little scared of the airbrush, to be honest. Regular readers of this blog (assuming there are any) will know that I was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma and have been going through chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants. To date nobody really knows what causes Hodgkin's. There's a minor statistical link with the Epstein-Barr Virus, but it isn't an especially powerful link and fundamentally nobody knows what causes the cancer. Virus? Toxin? Bad luck?

Whatever, I think about all those years I've been airbrushing using lacquer thinner and I sort of wonder. No matter how good my exhaust hood is (and it isn't bad), I inhale lacquer thinner fumes. No matter how careful I am, I get lacquer thinner on my hands. Sometimes an awful lot of it. Can I say that years of exposure to lacquer thinner caused my cancer? No. But I can't say it didn't either. And now that my cancer appears to be beaten back and in remission, I'm a bit wary of exposing myself to massive doses of lacquer thinner fumes again.

The obvious solution is to stop airbrushing enamels and switch to acrylics. And I probably will, once I get over the shock of the idea. Another obvious solution is to wear a respirator and rubber gloves, and I probably should. But all of this represents even more bother, and makes me even less inclined to airbrush anything.

It's gotten so bad that I brush-painted the last few airplane models I've actually finished, which seems positively Paleolithic.

So that's my problem. I like to build things, but I just don't enjoy airbrushing that much. So the unbuilt stuff piles up, and as soon as something gets to the airbrushing stage, I get something new off the shelf. It's a habit I really have to break before my entire (and huge) collection of models ends up half-built. I vowed not to start anything new until I've at least finished the large and bulky Imhotep model, but my discipline is poor and that Lindberg Snark in my closet is calling to me...

But on the other hand, building models is supposed to be fun, and what's more important, having fun or finishing things? Well, both, I guess.