New Hobby: Miniature Models
I've decided to pursue one hobby fairly seriously. It's not a hobby I've ever really identified strictly as a serious hobby, nor exclusively. Rather, I've sort of mildly pursued lots of other hobbies instead: biking, photography, flying, music, movies, reading, puzzles, travel.
None of those hobbies have ever really grabbed me. And we recently bought a model rocket for Christopher Robin, and doing that made me think of what a fun hobby that is, and how I don't really have hobbies as much as diversions and leisurely pursuits.
So the family and I went to Borders, where I had in my mind to browse through the selection looking specifically for a new hobby that would grab me. I found a book titled "Get A Hobby" or something like that, and looked through about 100 ideas. I read the entire list about three times, still not finding anything that leaped out. Finally, I sort of settled on one: Balsa Wood Carving. And the more I thought about that, the more I thought of the neat sort of little things I would build.
And thus I was grabbed.
I won't be sticking just with balsa, although I'm sure I'll be using it. Right away, I started thinking of little Christmas villages and the like.
After Borders, we dropped into Michaels for some things we'd need for the rockets, and I got drawn to the Halloween displays. (Yes, they are already out. No, I don't believe it, either.) They had some neat miniatures that spawned some ideas.
I browsed on the web today for more ideas. I came across Department 56, of course, and got lots more ideas. But I plan to create my own original ideas and then build them.
I'll begin with a Halloween theme (one of my favorite holidays). Michaels had a Halloween amusement park theme going on, and I liked that, so I'm going to start with my own. I'll keep it simple, by starting with the ticket booth. Here's the first draft:
More details will come later. I'll see how hard it is to add lights and some special effects. I don't plan to put in any moving parts yet, but I'm sure I will later on.
I'm also going to document how long it takes to actually build this, and how expensive it turns out to be. The above picture is the result of maybe 4 hours of browsing on the web, thinking, and maybe 30 minutes of drawing.