Anyone want to pass the time at home by having a crack at building a scale model?

A thread.

First things first: You don’t have to do it! If you do do it, you don’t have to finish it! If it’s finished, it doesn’t have to look amazing!

The important thing is: It makes you feel good.

So if you want to buy a die cast model that’s already built for display; or pay someone to build a model for you; or abandon it incomplete because the experience didn’t meet expectation; that’s all fine.

Still with me? Ok. Let’s set expectations.

Consider what your interests are, what you think your relative skill level is, & what you’re going to do with the model once it’s built. You don’t want to wind up with a foot-long F-14 Tomcat that doesn’t fit the shelf.

Consider what kind of investment you’re going to put in too. A $20 kit might also incur $50+ in paint, glue, brushes, sandpaper, scalpel, thinner/brushes, & other ancilliary bits & pieces to finish it. And that doesn’t cover airbrush tools, putty filler, etc

Useful advice: There’s plenty or reviews for models online, but YouTube channels now are a great way of watching someone else build a kit & deciding whether it’s really ‘for me’.

Where can you buy?
Easy. Amazon & eBay are good markets for finding specific kits, but I recommend going to hobby stores who have online stores. Support your local small businesses, folks!

What should I get?
Consider: What are you interested in? Is there something you built as a kid? Maybe something you deployed with, or saw at an air show? Did you see it in a movie? The key here is, get something you won’t lose interest in too quickly.

Can’t find what you’re looking for? Then ask around.
What you want to build might not be exist in the scale/price range you want. There’s usually modellers who have an honest bone in them to point you in the right direction.

You’ve chosen your kit: What else do you need?
Briefly:
-The paints, thinner (for cleaning brushes), & paintbrushes
-Glue
-Sandpaper (fine grain!)
-A scalpel

For the paints: If you look up your model on http://ScaleMates.com , you can usually find the kit and figure out what paints you’ll need in advance by looking at the instructions online. Tamiya’s acrylic range is a pretty starting point, FYI.

Paints come (typically) in acrylic, enamel, or lacquer, all requiring a different thinner to clean them after painting. You, uh, don’t want to mix them.

There’s also the option of airbrush (which unless you’re experienced with, is a steep learning curve) and spray cans (which have a limited paint range but might be a good option for painting the final model).

You’re definitely going to want a scalpel and/or small pliers for cutting pieces off of the tree. A very fine grain sandpaper is recommended for sanding the joins on the model. Model putty filler is also worth getting, especially if you’re inexperienced or the model isn’t good

There’s a whole range of glue out there. Revell liquid cement is probably a good starting point before you crack out superglue, at least until you get some experience. Tamiya very thin liquid cement is good too but evaporated really quickly.

Once you’ve got a kit and all your tools ready - crack on! I recommend painting selected parts whilst they’re still attached to the tree, & coming back when they’re dry to start the build in. This hobby is a ‘build/paint, go away for a couple of hours, come back & continue’

You can probably knock some kits out in the space of a day, but the completed product will look rushed and might disappoint you. It’s ok to take some time with it.

Consider getting some modelling masking tape. It looks like yellow painters tape, but has a stronger grip that doesn’t leave (much) residue. That makes it good for masking the model when you’re painting it; & holding parts together while glue dries.

That’s all the useless advice I can think of for the time being. I might come back later with some kit recommendations and the like.