#this whole post was just me gushing about my Gundams but you can't tell me I'm wrong

[furtiveseal]

Gunpla was totally a perfect storm for me. Picture this. It's late last year. I have been spending most of my hobby money buying MtG booster packs (I know, bad idea, not my point). WotC gets into the whole OGL debacle and I decide I don't want to give them money anymore. This also incidentally frees up some time in the evening for me, and I'm mostly spending it on YouTube. Not great.

Now one piece of advice I'd seen a lot was that you should get a hobby where you make physical stuff, and I wanted to try that. Here's the thing though: I have dyspraxia, which means I have very bad fine motor skills, making many manual hobbies frustrating. I have an unfortunate Warhammer pile of shame that I may or may not get to because while I love the idea of having models, building them has been very frustrating: plastic glue melts them so every time I mess up it makes them look worse, and I didn't even have a hobby knife for a long time, so my models look bad. And that's not even mentioning painting. It takes me three hours to paint a single Space Marine intercessor, badly. I can't seem to thin my paints correctly no matter how I do it, and so I'm never satisfied with how my models look in the end.

Enter Gunpla. A friend introduces me to Gundam Witch, I get obsessed, and look into Gunpla. It's basically big Lego sets of giant robots. They snap together, no glue required. They're already in the right colors, no need to paint anything if you don't want to. The kits are WAY less expensive than Warhammer, at least for the entry ones.

I'm lucky, because my local game store happens to have a random 30 Minute Missions kit lying around. I get a set of three hobby knives for 3€, and I start building as soon as I get home. I have a bit of trouble here and there, I have to hurt my hands pushing some of the pieces to fit, but I end up building the whole thing in a few days and it looks... Good!

And I understand why people say to get a hobby which lets you create physical stuff. I love getting home every day and seeing the kits I built on my shelves. Figurines are cool, but it just hits different when you're the one who built them. I have a little family of 7 mechs now! And unlike figurines, I'm not afraid of handling them. Even if an arm falls off, I know I can just put it back.

Best part is, it's making me more confident about tackling my Warhammer pile of shame too. Maybe I'll even manage to paint tiny toy soldiers I'm actually happy with!