I would say inspiration in my early years would be my parents
John and
Margaret...I can still imagine both of them struggling to put together my first Fokker Friendship when I was just five. Somehow they knew I would love this hobby and to get my dexterity and creativity sorted out I was given a set of Lego to start off. In time my interest were stuff that looked the right shape with curves and didn't fall apart and I don't mean girls. My Dad's best friend had a
display case of built models and he became my next inspiration with a Tiger Moth as a present. Back then I only knew
Airfix which became my third source of inspiration.
We weren't well off but my parents managed to infuse my hobby with nearly all that was in the
Airfix catalog perhaps because I was shy and not the badgering sort of kid but just built what was given. I could finish HMS Prince in a day and that stood proud above the TV set. Now I wished I could do that kit again and give it its due respect.
Bording school and sport took over for a while until I was introduced to Monogram and
Tamiya by a school friend.
Shep Paine's work in the leaflets that came with the Monogram kits became my fourth inspiration and the fifth that hit me was
Tamiya's catalog of 1/35 armor and infantry kits. Obviously later catalogs featured
Verlinden and I just wanted to do dios like him. I learned build techniques and skills just by looking at his dios. Won my first competition and I was hooked. I wanted more references and found Italeri catalogs with his builds and was introduced to their kits.
Disco and girls intervened in my late teens and plastic modeling wasn't cool for a while till I started working in Advertising and wanted a hobby to take the edge off pressure and deadlines. I turned to modeling and modeling magazines like FineScale, Military Modeling, Scale modeling and
Tamiya modeling magazines helped fuel the interest back again. I noticed
Tony Greenland for his armor,
Steve Zaloga for his references in US tanks and
Stan Catchpol for his dio gizmology and they got me into more detailing. For figures,
Bill Horan inspired me with his "Last Stand at Gandamak". So armed with all these inspirations my approach to modeling is a hodgepodge in a pot.
Lately I have been following the works of
Kazuya Yoshioka by accident seeing his works in many Japanese modeling magazines like "Passing Friendship". Obviously since I don't read Japanese I didn't know who he was but had one of the print outs from
Tamiya's 1/48 promotional leaflets of his work of a downed P-47 and a troop of Shermans somewhere in Italy called "The Monster Has Landed". In Shizuoka I got to see not only
Shep and
Verlindens dios up close but also met
Kazuya San and see his latest dio "Move, Move, Move". It's featured in Diorama The Perfection 2. I bought the book and got it autographed. There was someone who helped with the translation between us.
There are many other modelers that inspire me including some here and seriously there will always be inspiration just round the corner when you least expect it.
Cheers,
Richard
