2024 has been a pretty big year at Casa Doogs, with one notable exception – modeling. The high hopes I brought into the year fizzled pretty quickly. And as I write this, I haven’t so much as touched a model in over two months. Since the beginning of October. Which just so happens to be when I finished my one, single, solitary build for the year.

Modeling’s been a significant part of my life for the past 14 years. I’ve never wanted it to be a dominant part of my identity, but if I’m being honest, for at least part of that time it has been. Thing is though, our identities change over time. I’m not the same person I was 14 years ago. Or even just two years ago. And the magnitude of changes have thrown my relationship with modeling out of balance.

Things began to slip in 2022 and have just continued from there. At first I thought it was just fatigue with a certain project, or a certain scale, or what-have-you. But those surface-level explanations fell away one by one. It’s almost felt like a shedding of layers, like Agatha peeling off all those TV versions of herself in the first episode of Agatha All Along. 

So part of this is…what’s happening? And part of it is…where do I go from here?

What’s happening? 

There’s no one simple explanation for what’s afoot, so indulge me or just scroll I guess. A lot of this is me just trying to articulate everything. 

My health journey

My life got upended in 2022. Literally right out of the new year I had a health scare, with six months of weird symptoms like neuropathy and debilitating headaches. After a boring tale of many medical appointments and scans and exams and bad diagnoses, I finally discovered I had developed type II diabetes. 

Rude awakening? Absolutely. But it was an answer. After six months of shadowboxing phantom pains and feeling like constant ass, I had a problem I could work against. I upended my diet. I quit smoking. Got back to exercising more seriously than I ever had in the past. And it’s worked. One year out, my A1C fell below even prediabetic range – and it’s stayed down there since. I’m down nearly 45 pounds from where I was in June 2022, and these days I’m in better shape than I’ve ever been in.

I’ve also been working my way through other issues. Some newly discovered, others just long avoided or unrecognized. Blood pressure. Depression. Sleep apnea. ADHD. Hell, I even buckled down and got my wisdom teeth removed in October (after like 25 years of avoiding it). 

ADHD explains it all?

The ADHD diagnosis has been the most revelatory. It’s giving me a new perspective on my life and experiences, and why I’ve tended to do some of the shit I do. It explains why I’m pretty good at pattern recognition and non-linear thinking. And why I have a high degree of justice sensitivity.

It also explains (I think) how I got back into modeling, and how I came to my current predicament.

The theory of the case is this. My ADHD is particularly hyperfocus driven. I’ve always followed interests down very deep rabbit holes, from dolphins and whales to military aircraft, Roman history, offroad vehicles, various fandoms, photography, modeling, you name it. But I also had to survive school and work and life, which I did by learning how to trick my brain into hyperfocusing on demand. The key? Find something about a subject that piqued my interest. That little nugget, that little hook, would draw the hyperfocus out, at least enough to get the job done. It worked for exams and term papers and big work projects.

But on top of those, there were still all the natural, untamed points of hyperfocus to attend to. Since 2010, modeling has been a big part of that. Like a hyperfocus relief valve. No wonder I saw it as decompression – it was literally soothing my nervous system.

Here’s where it gets fucked up. Hyperfocus is both energizing and exhausting. And undiagnosed ADHDers like myself are far more likely to slip into stimulant abuse than your average person. It’s a means of self-medicating.

Looking back now, it’s obvious that cigarettes and Diet Coke and coffee were exactly that. My own mechanism for achieving “lock in”.

It worked for years. Probably too well. Before I came back to modeling, I used to write in my free time. And there was definitely a point in there where I wondered if I was smoking so I could write, or if I was writing so I could smoke. With modeling, I don’t have a clear answer. I don’t know how much of it was just an excuse to be in the garage late at night when I could easily sneak cigarettes.

That horrifically codependent situation carried on until June 2022, when I quit cold turkey. Amazing the motivation a health scare can provide

Since then I’ve been bouncing around, trying different things, finding some successes, but not finding the driving NEED to be out in the garage.

Most of the last two years have been spent trying to untangle that relationship. What is modeling without smoking? Without staying up until ungodly hours? Without, as it turns out, untreated ADHD?

The falloff really started in earnest in the past few months. Which just happens to coincide with 1) getting my ADHD diagnosed and treated and 2) getting my sleep apnea under control. Those two together mean that I’m tired at the end of the day and don’t particularly have a drive to get out to the bench. 

There’s also the fact that the bench is a disaster area and cluttered beyond belief. I made a cleanup effort earlier in the year, but it was still hot outside, and I made the mistake of stopping halfway through – which just made everything worse. The clutter is everywhere. 

Lost interest in military subjects

Somewhere along the way, my interest in military subjects also evaporated. Just completely poofed. Is it because, with all that’s going on in the world, killing machines just seem too…heavy? Callous? Even when they’re on the quote-unquote good side? Is it because we seem, as a civilization, to be staring down the barrel of another period of “interesting times”?

Or is it because it’s what I’ve done for so long and I’m just bored? I don’t know. I really don’t. And I wish I did.

And you know what the real kick in the nuts to all this is? We finally have all these gorgeous new-tool Phantoms, and a 1/16 M4A1(76) Sherman. Hell, even an amazing 1/32 Spitfire Mk.Vc conversion. Shit I’ve been wanting for years. And now it’s here and my interest isn’t. Ain’t that a fuck?

A lot going on at the moment

Then there’s the rest of life. Parenting three kids is always hectic, but as they’ve gotten older, it’s become a different kind of hectic. They’re very much becoming their own people with their own personalities and quirks and interests, and I’m realizing that’s my favorite thing about being a dad. 

This is the stuff that matters. And if being more present for these key years means modeling has to take a back burner, so be it. 

Oh and on top of kids, we welcomed a new pupper into our lives early in the year. Mabel the dachshund is every bit the dachshund, for all the good and bad that entails. And she wakes me up at 6 AM every morning for food. Which I’ll admit has put a damper on my desire and ability to stay up late.

A Defender diversion

Speaking of the rest of life, in February I got my hands on an old Land Rover Defender 90, and it’s been sucking up amounts of time as I make repairs and replacements. I’m not spending every spare moment wrenching or anything like that – far from it. But designing cupholders or a new switch plate, or a replacement rear seat mount, all those things do take some time and attention.

Recently I replaced the tire carrier with one that won’t put so much strain on the rear door. Next up I’m diagnosing the rear door latch and striker, looking into some rear storage options, and need to look into the AC system and why it’s not blowing cold. I suspect it just needs a recharge. 

Different hobbies?

Something I’ve been drawn to lately is the idea of picking up different hobbies. Thanks to my daughter, I’ve wandered back into reading (actual paper books, not ebooks or audiobooks). And I’ve tossed around the idea of starting to write again. Or what if I want to try my hand at drawing – specifically digital art? I think I might have a knack for it. I think it might make me better at things like figure painting. And of course there’s photography and 3D design and all the other things that can draw my attention away at any given moment.

Where do I go from here? 

I don’t know. I still very much like the idea of modeling. I have tons of creative ideas just bursting to get out. I have a whole ass fictional world I’ve worked out that’s ripe for fascinating stories and subjects. But doing it the way I’ve been doing it won’t work. Building an aircraft and recording like 20+ video installments for it won’t work. Taking photos on a plain white background won’t work. I need to find a new way to engage with the hobby. 

And I’m increasingly convinced the way through is to clean house and redo the whole bench area. 

Clutter and spiders and garbage

The last time I did a full bench renewal was in 2018. That’s six years ago – six years for my ADHD-fueled clutter to overwhelm everything, six years for my processes to shift, and six years for spiders to spread their webs of insect slaughter all over the place. 

There’s too much everything at and around the bench. Too many kits. Too many paints. Too many tools. Too many aftermarket bits and WIPs and spares. And desiccated husks of crickets and cicadas and junebugs and the weird fuzzy detritus that the circle of life playing out in my garage tends to generate. 

It’s a job that extends beyond simply cleaning. The same situation would quickly reassert itself. 

No, I need a full bench reorg, around three principles.

Despiderfy

Right now my bench is full of places for spiders to spin their webs and just make a mess of everything.  From the MRP racks on the backsplash, to the decal solutions, to the thinners sitting on the bench, to the support arms for the lights, everything feels like a spider trap. 

So priority one is to despiderfy. What does that mean? It means to rethink the bench area in such a way that nooks and crannies and open storage areas are minimized. Everything that possibly can will live in a drawer or cabinet or sealed bin. 

It means to sand and paint the currently unfinished wood holding the backsplash to the workbench. Because that unfinished wood just eats paper towels, shop cloths, swiffers, and anything else I might deploy against the spiders. 

It means rethinking garage lighting entirely, all the way up to the ceiling fixtures. 

Declutter

A big part of the fun of modeling is, honestly, accumulating shit. But then you have all that shit and it’s just too much to deal with. And I’m not talking just kits or aftermarket. There’s the paints I bought on a whim. Or the paints I have but just don’t use because others already fill that role fine. The multiple busted-ass, dented-up tweezers I hold onto for some reason. The probably dozens of bottles of various Ammo and AK products that are almost certainly solidified in their bottles. 

There’s the photo table. Which takes up a staggering amount of space (and provides a lot of corners and overhangs and nooks for spiders to get on their bullshit) and which, honestly, has limited me to one style of photography. So I’m planning to get rid of it in favor of a system that is more modular and easily stowable. 

Account for the ADHD

I’ve always had a fraught relationship with organization. On the one hand, I love getting things organized. I love finding a system that makes it easy to locate and retrieve information or things. On the other hand I suck at maintaining organization. I run out of space and have to improvise. Or other things intrude into an organized space (like that PE fret that somehow got in with my Tamiya paints). Or I tell myself I’ll need that thing again soon, so why put it up? And then I blink and I’m working in a space that’s maybe 3×3” and knocking shit over every time I move. 

I need a system that can work with me. So I’m looking at the few organizational systems I have that do work for me. My Lightroom catalog. My STLs folder on Dropbox. My MRP paint racks. 

I’m still working out exactly what this will all look like, but so far I’m chasing a few simple rules.

Stuff that I use frequently will be near at hand. For example, the drawer closest to my airbrush holder will contain ink cups, pipettes, q-tips, Tamiya tape, and stencils. So instead of having to get up, walk to a cabinet, grab a handful, dump them on the desk, I can just reach into a drawer for a cup. 

Everything will have a place. Or at least a zone. Some certain tools or materials need their own dedicate space. I’m designing specific Gridfinity solutions for MRP, Tamiya, and AK Gen 3 paints for example. And I know what drawers they will belong in. But things like sanding sticks, paintbrushes, or strip styrene may be able to get along in more generalized bins. 

Everything will be sealed up. At the end of each bench session, the work surfaces will be cleared and wiped down. Paints, brushes, tape, whatever will be put away. Whatever I’m working on will go into a sealed bin, or into a cabinet drawer. No exceptions. If I need to remember, say, what specific paints I’m playing with, I can take a picture with my phone. 

What’s the timeline?

Right now, I don’t know exactly when I’ll be back to models. Much less making videos. The garage is a big task that extends beyond the bench, and I’m hoping to have it done before the heat comes back next year. 

But for what it’s worth, I’m very lucky to have a light workload through the end of the year (January is a whole different story) and the motivation to go hard at the garage. 

One thing I don’t want to do is spin up a project (or return to a project) before the garage stuff is done. Because I know myself. And I know that’s the surest way to guarantee it never gets done, and I’m right back in this situation in a few months. 

So…stay tuned?