Burnout. Build Fatigue. Being plain ol’ Tired of Gunpla.
However you want to put it, most folks who do a hobby will hit a point where they feel less than enthusiastic about it. Sanding gatemarks feels like a chore, the thought of putting parts on skewers and spending hours with a respirator on your face with your head in spraybooth makes you want to curl up and die, or maybe you’ve just go no inspiration for everything you’ve got in your backlog. The fire is decidedly out when it comes to working on scale models.
What do you do when the hobby just isn’t feeling fun for you?
Take a break. Consider trying a new hobby, or pick up one of your other hobbies that have been on the back burner while you were working on models. The nice thing about hobbies is that they’ll always be there waiting for you. Excluding competitions, there’s no expiration date or deadline on finishing a model that you’re working on. I’ve always viewed building scale models as an artform (even just snapping them together) and the thing about art is that you need to have passion for your project to shine it’s brightest. What ‘take a break’ means will be different from builder to builder. Maybe you’re the kind of person who gets revitalized by working on a gunpla in a different grade/scale, or maybe you’re the kind of person who recharges their building batteries by disengaging from the hobby as a whole and returning when you start to feel the strong desire to see a newly completed build sitting on your shelf.
This advice goes for when you start to feel too pressed on a build you’re working on too- sometimes you need to give your eyes and mind a rest from your current outlook on the project for things to really fall in to place properly. I’ve had a lot of build ideas that really didn’t solidify themselves in my mind until I took a bit of a break from thinking about it all the time.
Whatever the case may be, don’t be hesitant to just set your tools and kits down for a little bit and take a breath of fresh air. Sometimes it feels as though there’s a lot of pressure to always be turning out finished builds or to always be working on something to show our friends, followers, and the community at large.
Don’t fall in to that trap.
Make gunpla or any other scale model because you love it. That’s why we all picked up this hobby and why our backlogs are always growing and we’re always excited about the newest kits that get announced, after all! Taking a break doesn’t mean you’re done with gunpla or that you don’t like it any more and you should do your best to avoid looking at it like that. Creative muses are fickle things that come and go as they please and it’s okay to embrace Just Not Feelin’ It™. Recovering from burnout takes a different amount of time from person to person too. Don’t feel pressured to return in a set amount of time; you’ll know when you’re ready to dive back in to building.
Your models, and more importantly your friends, will always be ready and waiting for you when the fire reignites, I promise.