One Today - Miniatures In Detail's First Birthday!

It's one year today since this blog started so I thought I'd spend a bit of time reflecting before looking forward to the next year. The intention of this blog was to chart my return to scale modelling and at that it has succeeded. It was certainly a mixed year, a wide range of projects were attempted, there was a mix of success and failure.

Highlights included Tamiya's F/P-51D which I believe is my best build to date and Airfix's A6M2b Zero which came just at a time when I felt I was never going to get anywhere. There was also the unexpected return to fantasy miniatures and a first try at 1:48 scale military figures which I hope will lead to future projects.

Success!

Outside of this blog I've have been surprised by the success of my Pinterest page which I've been using to link to inspiration photos and articles I've found on the internet while researching projects.

As for the lowlights, there were a few failed projects, but the main one was my failure to complete all but one of the models I mentioned in my first post (two were started and subsequently abandoned, two remain un-started). This was partly due to my inexperience and not really having much focus, essentially I based this to-do list on what kits I had available at the time.

Failure! One out of five completed, two half completed...

I think part of the reason was that I wanted to attempt so much that I never really found any focus for the majority of this year, but this period of discovery has led me to realise that I'm finally finding areas of interest.

So what are they? Aircraft wise, I found a growing interest in US Second World War aircraft (but not just in US service), leading through to late war experimental aircraft and early cold war aircraft from all nations.

Which brings us back to the present day, with a clearer idea of what I like I can write another, hopefully more focused, to-do list for the coming year and be more successful this time round!

The To - Do List - 2014/15

In no particular order:

1. Another Tamiya kit, I want to carry on from my most successful build to date. A good part of that success was due to the fact I was building such a quality kit, it makes sense to build another.
2. An Eduard Profipack. After using Eduard detail sets for many of my builds it's time I tried the full package, Eduard plastic with Eduard photo-etch.
3. A Luftwaffe WWII experimental / jet fighter. A long time area of personal interest (I'll write more about that later) that I've yet to visit in model form.
4. An early Cold War era jet. A newer area of interest that has followed on from my interest in WWII jets. I'm aware I could chose Tamiya's F-84G Thunderjet (I've had my eye on it for a while now) and count this build towards No. 1 as well, but I would prefer that it doesn't.
5. A sci-fi scale model. Of course I'm hoping this will involve successfully finishing the Fine Molds TIE fighter which I couldn't resist starting a few days ago.

If I achieve some success with these targets, and time allows, then I'd like to attempt a 1:48 scale military project, probably starting out with a small vehicle to accompany the figures I've already attempted.

And finally I've like to at least continue painting miniatures. However I've found it difficult to stay inspired and focused so realistically I think I will be miniature painting between the modelling projects for now. At the moment I'm completely out of practice but who knows maybe this time next year, I'll be painting more of them as well as having completed plenty of scale model projects!

As for you my readers, I hope you've enjoyed this past year as much I have and I hope to continue sharing my journey with you into the next year (and beyond).