I have recently (from about 2013) rediscovered my interest in military modeling. I recall reading something that has stuck in my head, that the military modelers had (in general) superior airbrushing and painting skills to railroad modelers; while this is debatable, there is no question that the camouflage schemes put on military models are complex and can require great skill, more than uniformly painting a piece of rolling stock (graffiti tags even things out a bit, but that's just my opinion).
So I went to my local hobby shop (Berkeley Ace Hardware, in this case) and found a couple of kits for not much money (this is a whole different topic, but the cost of railcars relative to plastic models seems to have changed somehow, and not for the better for the railroaders). I acquired a couple of planes and small armor, all 1/72 scale (so that I didn't have to find spots for huge models). I went to Amazon.com for a few books (see my library page) on models and dioramas.
After cracking open some kits, which in itself was pretty cool (I enjoy the anticipation, and looking through all the sprues), I put together a couple of simple kits, and had a ball doing so! So now I fear my hobby interests have expanded somewhat to include this area, good for me, in that I enjoy it and it keeps the railroad modeling from going a bit stale (I've certainly hit "the wall" when it comes to motivation for certain projects). I am ideally learning some things too that I can apply to my railroading.
I model 1/72 scale aircraft for size reasons- I don't have the room for a lot of larger models.
I have chosen to go with 1/72 scale armor for size reasons (and the detail is quite good); but I do look enviously at those 1/48 scale dioramas, with all the detail you can pack in the scene. I suppose they aren't that large when you're dealing with a single vehicle and a scene, but it's not something I've tried lately.
Back to Other Interests.