On my dad's side, my grandfather had a knack for scratchbuilding. He built a wooden scale replica of the Drommedaris (the ship with which Jan van Riebeeck sailed from Holland to the Cape of Good Hope in 1652) using only a pocketknife. My grandmother made the sails. He passed away when I was only a year old, and I remember as a kid looking at this ship, thinking about the skilled man who built this detailed model out of almost nothing.
So it is no wonder I have a scratchbuilding itch.
As a kid I read almost every sci-fi book I could find. There were lots of trips to the library. Influences include Isaac Asimov, Anne McCaffrey and later Greg Bear and Iain M. Banks. Of course, TV shows like Robotech and Star Trek were a favourite, including more obscure ones like X Bomber and Interster. Although I watched Star Wars much later than anyone else I knew, I was hooked immediately.
While in school I started doing pottery, which I basically used as an excuse to make anything but pots. I loved working with clay. I still can't believe the teacher there let me build the stuff I did. My best guess is that she just realised that I had my own path to tread.
Wherever I went I had a sketchpad with me, and I would draw incessantly, trying to recreate the wonderful ships and characters from the books & shows I enjoyed. I never really picked up scale model building, finding it very limiting. Instead, Lego filled the model building void
I'm trying to pass this on, literally and figuratively: my kids are now playing with the same bag of Lego pieces that I grew up with. The misconception in creative arts is, in my opinion, that you are either born with it, or not. I think there is both nature and nurture involved, it is just the relative amounts of each that is different amongst individual artists. I hope to give my kids the gift of crafting.
Enjoy your stay.
Chris
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