Baby On Board!

I guess you've all been wondering why there have been no updates for over a month now. Well here is the reason: after 9 months of anxious waiting, my baby is finally here! Born at 8:40am of March 1st, weighing in at 2.9 kilos - I present to you, Marcus Aro!

I've never been this excited over anything, and only a few days into being a father, I can already say there is nothing like it! I get a natural high everytime I complete a kit, because I am able to create something beautiful (in my eyes at least) out of something ordinary. Now here I am with a baby, and he is beyond compare. It's a bit scary too, because he seems so fragile..it's not as if I can just putty over a scratch on his skin!

I expect my hobby to take the backseat for some time, but once we've settled in and the daddy duties become a routine, I will slowly get back into building gunpla. Having a baby means my free time will be spent mostly on him, so I will need to be more organized if I intend to finish any projects I take on.

I'm trying to come up with ways to streamline the whole process, particularly the pre-painting and snap-building stage. Some friends from the GundamPh facebook group suggested that the runners can be organized like files - standing on one end for easy access. I decided to go with this as it seemed to be the most practical solution in terms of space. I took their advice a little too literaly I think, as I ended up with an actual filing box with file dividers.

With my new runner organizer I was able to make slow but steady progress in snap-building the Daban EXs, finding time whenever my baby is fast asleep, or in between feeding sessions.

As for the modifications (which my builds never go without), I've been doing a lot of drafting on my laptop and my phone. I downloaded some line art to test some color schemes out, and I've installed Quill - a sketching application - on my phone. By loading up some stock pictures of kit sections and sketching over them with the S-pen, I am able to do rapid prototyping of design ideas, taking inspiration from various custom builds.

Painting in MS Paint with the Fill tool...

Sketching on my Note using the Quill app...

Once I am happy with the design, I can then break down the customization phase into smaller tasks that I can fit into short (maybe 1 hour) building sessions. (i.e. head scribing, right leg scribing, left leg scribing, and so on) With a clear plan of attack (and an insane amount of luck) I might still be able to put out a kit every two to three months.

Now that I'm a dad I have to budget my time as well. I'm sure there are a lot of modeller dads out there, and I hope you guys can clue me in on how you are keeping the hobby even when you have kids to look after!