I’ve been delinquent in Sprue Cutter’s Union posts, but this one was easy since I’ve already written about it! Here’s the latest prompt:

How do you stay in the hobby when you’re away from the bench?

This is a great question for me. I travel a lot for work, and the weekend time is in terribly low supply between my family time, chores, errands, and sleeping in. I have two categories of non-workbench focused modeling to occupy me.

1. Hands on modeling

If I want to take actual modeling work on the road with me, I focus on figuring painting. I wrote about my mobile painting setup recently, but since I hate checking bags with a fiery passion, I avoid anything with sharp edges. That means no knives, and therefore no construction.

That said, when we were out of our house for 2.5 weeks recently, I setup a mobile workbench in the hotel. From a model construction standpoint, I was surprised how minimal, yet how effective the collection of gear was.

2. Modeling related activities

My work travel is often (very long) single day trips. Lots of time on a plane, in a cab, or waiting in an airport. And even when I stay overnight, sometimes the trip leaves little time or energy back in the room to bust out the painting. So… what’s a traveling modeler to do? Here’s a few ideas:

  • Digital modeling magazines: I have subscribed to a number of digital modeling magazines on my iPad and planes are a great time to catchup on them all.
  • Modeling movies: Back to that magical iPad device, I stock it with modeling videos and movies.
  • This blog! That’s right, I sometimes write blog  posts at 33,000 feet.

 

Update: Steven over at Scale Model Soup has some additional thoughts on this topic that reminded me of a few things I missed. The biggest one is the “deep dive in the forums. I can get lost for days on Armorama!