Hellö from Sweden!

[Jens]

Hi All!

My name is Jens and I live in the south of Sweden. I came back to scale modelling in the beginning of the summer after a 30 year long hiatus... I quit modelling back in the days because the kits were wonky, expensive and not fun to build at all - and the paint looked like it was painted with a hammer so it killed any creativity that could've existed...
The kits today are fantastic and the difference in quality is gigantic! Paint has also really improved and gone are the horrible metal jars and plastic brushes!
I mostly use airbrush but I do most of the details with fine brushes. I don't like "pure" acrylic paint since it takes forever to dry in my climate so until recently I've been mainly using Tamiya paint but I bought a load of MRP a couple of weeks ago and I like them a lot! (I also like Tamiya but their range of colours isn't the greatest and they're quite inconsistent even within the same batch and I prefer to buy the correct colour instead of mixing my own every time and MRP has delivered so far in that department.)

I had an accident some years ago where I took a dive down some stairs which left me in a wheelchair. After many years of fighting the system I met a fantastic private surgeon who fixed me so I could walk again but the nerve damage is beyond repair and my lower spine got badly compressed (I'm 7 cm shorter now!) so life is what it is...
For obvious reasons I was forced to retire since I spend most of the days in bed on morphine but as a workoholic this wasn't great and life was really miserable and boring...

I've been following some modellers on youtube for a couple of years and I decided to see if it was something for me again and I got badly hooked from day one.
I'm a typical "German tank guy" who's started to broaden his field of view and I've recently tried some flying contraptions as well but honestly what I build isn't so important because it's the creativity that's giving me the best therapy out there and modelling has in a way given me some life back!

I've lost count how many kits I've built since the summer but it's quite a few. Not all are painted and live in the corner of shame but they served a purpose at the time and they will eventually get painted too.
My stash quickly went from 1 kit to 5, and then 10 soon thereafter. Now 9 months later I've got over 70 kits in the stash and I've made a deal with myself to not buy any more kits for a long while because it's going to take me several years to build the ones I already have... Buying kits is fun though and there are some of you that are much worse than I am so I'm not too worried... Not yet anyway

I've just made my first vignette and I learned lots doing this - and I think I made just about every error possibly making it, hence why I learned lots.

I'm eager to improve as a modeller and I value constructive criticism so don't be afraid to be honest when I ask for help how to improve or make something better?

Apart from modelling I love to tinker with just about everything, software and hardware design, wood and metal construction, hunting, cooking, growing my own vegetables and being an amateur chicken, duck and geese farmer etc etc... none of which I can do today so modelling has filled many slots and I'm yet again having a smile on my face!

I've started a couple really large modelling projects that's going to take a very long time to finish. One is the Entwicklungs-fahrzeug Sammlung - a lineup of all E-series of tanks from the tiny E-5 to the mighty E-100, in almost every variation! I'm aware that all of them are paper panzers but that's beside the point...
One other, even bigger, project is the Schwerer Gustav diorama with the Battle of Sevastopol. It's based around the Hobby Boss Dora #82911 1/72 railway gun and the Flak battalions, engineers etc supporting the steel monster. The diorama will roughly the same size as a normal door so it's going to take up some space and includes many kits, but it's been a fun project to research and to put into action!

That's a bit about me.

I can be found on scalemates here: https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=32827
Everything modelling I write about here: https://scalemodels.politisktinkorrektpappa.com

Cheers!

[Paul]

Welcome Aboard jens, great Intro to the forum, hope you feel at home here i look forward to seeing some of your work

[Kevthemodeller]

Jens

As Paul said great introduction

[sheppsea]

Welcome Jens

Excellent intro

[TommyKillander]

Välkommen / Welcome Jens!

Looking forward to see your work on the forum - that diorama sounds really interesting!


Tommy

[demarcation]

The Entwicklungs-fahrzeug Sammlung and the dio project sound very interesting. Looking forward to that.

[Jens]

Cheers guys for the welcome!

It's quite fantastic how (seemingly) gluing small pieces of plastic and coating them with paint can attract so many followers around the world and I hope we're not the last generation to have this interest and mindset with the ever changing world of virtual social interaction and 3D rendered substitutes for the rest of the world...?
Kids today don't play instruments any longer because they consider the XBox Guitar Hero controller to be a valid substitute and building in Minecraft has superseded Meccano, Lego, scale modelling and probably even carving sticks with a sharp knife...

I'm partly at fault for this having designed and manufactured various computer systems and mobile phones for the masses but we never though it would take over the physical world?

I'll try to make up for it by introducing my kids (12 & 14 years old) to scale modelling but although the initial reaction was energetic they haven't got the patience required - and knowing their dad sitting for hours upon hours gluing single strands of grass - one at the time, isn't exactly giving them other ideas...
I've bought most of the new Meng World War Toon tanks for them hoping that could be an easy way to start?
No computer game have the same satisfaction as something you've cobbled together with your bare hands! That's my belief anyway and something I'll stick to!

Joining a new forum whilst having a table full of projects and a corner of shame of proportions makes it tricky to know what to share, what to ask and what to discuss since they all started in the past but I'll make a start with something that I perhaps need some help with or a new set of eyes to spot areas for improvements and just let things progress.
I value constructive criticism way more than a pat on the shoulder and "it's looking good" - but I also value the cheers and the encouraging thumbs up when something's actually looking good.

A huge inspiration for me is Will Pattison (rubegoldberg), partly since we share a common past, although my wipeout wasn't anything near as manly as his but still. I've got full use of my hands whereas he hasn't - and yet he makes the most wonderful work, so the days when I feel my modelling mojo is low and my body hurts I think of him and pull myself together!
I want to be able to paint and weather that good one day so I practise a lot and I fail a lot, learning from those failures and eventually getting where I want to.

The most important thing I've learned about scale modelling since I started isn't how not to make errors whilst modelling. The best modeller is an expert at recovering from an error IMHO and that's my approach to improve as a modeller! Fail and make it look you did it on purpose :p

Once again many thanks for the welcome!

See you in the forum somewhere!

[misty]

Hey Jens, got myself on, will feel my way around site and start posting work, folks seem very friendly.
Will write my intro noe, short and sweet....will explain weird user name and make sure everyone knows my name is JIM

[DrSprue]

to the forum Jens, very cool intro as well and your thoughts about modeling. Enjoy!

[Jens]

Hey Jens, got myself on, will feel my way around site and start posting work, folks seem very friendly.
Will write my intro noe, short and sweet....will explain weird user name and make sure everyone knows my name is JIM

Great to see you here Jim!
It'll take some to get used to Uncle Misty though... Hehe...

[kiwigav]

Hi from New Zealand

[AlexBB]

to the Forum Jens... Hope you enjoy

[Jens]

Thank you all for making me feel welcome upon arriving here!!!
It's been a good first week

[Matthaus]

Hello Jens!