The F-Word

No, not that F-word. I’m talking about FUN and its relevance or otherwise to scale modelling.

Fun is a word which seems never far away from any scale modelling discussion in which anyone shows aspiration to improve. Whatever the topic, someone is bound to bemoan that they “just want modelling to be fun”.

I have never seen or heard a photographer, artist, or any other creative tell another that s/he should take the craft less seriously because it’s “only supposed to be fun”. Yet this kind of negativity is quite common in our hobby.

But, leaving aside the fun-proponent’s apparent desire to stone-dead the conversation, I think that they are clutching on to an unrealistic expectation of what modelling is about.

Is this a hobby or a pastime?

All hobbies are pastimes. But arguably not all pastimes are hobbies.

There’s a YouTube channel which interviews current and former military pilots. For a closing question, the interviewer often asks if they have any hobbies. Almost invariably, the respondent struggles to answer this unexpectedly irrelevant query and cites leisure activities instead!

Not everyone has a hobby, of course. But this cuts straight to a point of difference which perhaps many people don’t even notice: that listening to music is a pastime, but collecting rare vinyl or learning to play the guitar are hobbies.

Compared to most hobbies, most pastimes are passive and require little effort.

Effort

There’s a lot of truth in the old saying — you get out what you’re willing to put in.

Rewarding endeavours demand more from us. Studying for a qualification, developing a creative skill, mastering a foreign language, writing a book, taking up a competitive sport, climbing the Munros. And making scale models to the best of your ability.

There are far easier ways of having fun than pursuing a hobby. In any case, I’d argue that hobbies are not (primarily) about fun. If there is any one point to a hobby, it’s surely that it should be fulfilling in some way. Creative, educational, mentally absorbing, skill-building, health-improving or whatever you want. Without some kind of reward, it hardly seems worth all the effort, does it?

There’s a principle in psychology called challenge-reward. Game designers play on it. The principle says that we get the most out of a challenge when it’s difficult but achievable; the gain is proportional to the level of effort; the link between the effort and outcome is clear; and all the better if the reward is tangible. If you think about it, that neatly sums up modelling, doesn’t it?

Subtext?

I wonder whether some people may lean on the F-word, if only subconsciously, as shorthand for wanting to avoid being challenged. These two philosophies — seeking fun and avoiding challenges — do seem to go hand in hand.

But you can take it from me that avoiding challenges isn’t much fun and does nothing positive for your mental well being. Fear of failure is a hill which sometimes has to be climbed because the view from the top turns out to be well worth seeing.

Unrealistic expectation

Insist that scale modelling must always be fun and you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. It’s not going to be a constant source of sunshine and happiness. If it is, you’re not trying.

At times, it will be the cause of frustration, failure, self doubt, wasted money, and the occasional minor injury. Some aspects can even be — let’s be honest — a tiny bit dull. They come with the territory.

But when you complete a project to the best of your ability, especially if it challenged you along the way, it brings a lot of satisfaction and pride when you carefully slot it into place in the display cabinet and it looks just a bit sharper than all those around it.

That, to me, is the real point of this hobby.