A MODELMAKER’S LIFE: WILL I EVER BE EXCITED BY NEW KITS AGAIN..?

There are of course announcements for this year that I’m looking forward to getting my hands on, the Airfix 1/48 Phantom FG.1 and the Tamiya 1/35 Chaffee being two of those kits. I’m eager to build both of them and know that I will enjoy the process of constructing and painting each one. Am I excited by the thought? Not really.

29th January 2026

The end of January. Cold days. Wet weather. Snow. The annual Nuremberg Toy Fair, or for those to whom details matter: Spielwarenmesse 2026.

This of course is a big deal. A place where all of the toys, kits, and other treasures are announced. Where buyers can order for the next year. Where enthusiasts can plan what they are going to be focussed on. Where modellers can learn of the new releases that they will be excited by and hopefully, find their way onto workbenches around the world. I wish I could feel the same way. At least, I wish I could feel the way I once did, before each one became just another kit in a sea of kits to be built.

Truth be told, I don’t really experience excitement any more no matter what kit is announced. I look at the schedules, think to myself, yep that looks cool and move on. Those days when I dreamt of owning a brand-new kit as if it was the most important thing ion my life are gone, replaced with a jaded acceptance that anything new will be nothing more than ammunition on the way to a completed job that I will eventually move on from, in the face of something else shiny and new. 

That’s the downside to building models for a living. I’m not here to be thrilled by a new release, I’m here to build it and to show others where possible how that kit will look once complete and how they can get the best from it. That’s it: there is no more to it. Sure, I will do my very best with everything that I build, but I doubt that there are many projects that I truly feel excited by no matter how great the kit. Don’t get me wrong, that doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy the process, of course I do. Who wouldn’t be thrilled by the chance to build many of the world’s best kits? But that is always kept in check by the needs of those I work for, and the personal responsibilities I feel as a result.

But there is more to it than that. There are simply too many products being released to allow my brain to focus on any one thing. 

We are of course living in an astonishing age, where anything that you can dream of is being released to build. Gone are the days when we only had a handful of announcements to thrill us; today we have hundreds, if not thousands of releases every year to read about, plan for and build. I find that impossible to keep up with. I don’t want the genie to be put back in the bottle, absolutely not. I’m just making the point that when you are faced with an avalanche every year, it’s hard to spot the beauty of an individual snowflake.

And then there is the drip feed of releases that we see every day. Nothing stays secret for very long in the age of social media, so we are forever being told of kits sometimes years in advance that may or may not, eventually appear. I will see these announcements as nothing more than possibilities that I can subconsciously register until the kit actually appears. Further than that I tend not to go. With plenty of announcements that did cause a ripple of excitement over the years, but never made it further than vapourware, I’ve learned to be sceptical until I have kit in hand. One bitten, twice shy.

There are of course announcements for this year that I’m looking forward to getting my hands on, the Airfix 1/48 Phantom FG.1 and the Tamiya 1/35 Chaffee being two of those kits. I’m eager to build both of them and know that I will enjoy the process of constructing and painting each one. Am I excited by the thought? Not really. But then, I’m not worried about that. As long as those that build models as a hobby, as relaxation and a way to divorce themselves for a few hours from the real world are excited, that’s all that matters. And if I can help to elevate that excitement with my work and the resulting models, then that’s job done.

And now – back to Revell’s Meteor.

See you tomorrow.