Why do we build?

If you spend enough time around model builders, you start to realise that the model itself is often only part of the story.

At shows, somebody will stop at our stand to look at a particular car, aircraft or military vehicle. A few minutes later, they’re telling us where they first saw one, who they were with, or why that particular subject has stayed with them for the past forty years.

Sometimes the connection is very personal. A military model can represent a period of somebody’s own service, or remind them of a parent or grandparent. A car might take someone straight back to childhood. A film or television model can bring back the excitement of seeing something on screen for the first time.

It’s one of the things we’ve come to enjoy most about meeting customers.

You start by talking about a model. Very quickly, you’re talking about a life.

Some of the best conversations happen face to face. Here we are at Scale Model World, talking with fellow modellers about the builds, stories and subjects that matter to them.

And then there are the reasons people enjoy the building itself.

We hear a lot about the concentration it takes. Sitting down with a collection of parts and working through them, one stage at a time. Learning how something fits together. Solving the occasional problem. Realising that an hour has disappeared without you noticing.

Your hands are busy. Your attention is on what is in front of you. And, slowly, a box of components starts to become recognisable.

Eventually you get to stand back and look at something that wasn’t there before. Something you made.

For some builders, the model is only part of the story. This customer photograph captures the nostalgia, admiration and personal connection that can come with building an icon like the James Bond DB5.

That feeling comes up surprisingly often when we talk to builders. So does the pleasure of showing the finished model to somebody else – a partner, a friend, a child or grandchild – and explaining some tiny detail that probably took far longer to get right than anyone looking at it will ever know.

There’s another part of model making that we probably underestimated when Agora began, too: the conversations around it.

Builders compare notes. They send each other photographs. They talk through problems. They disagree about paint colours. They swap stories about the subjects they’re building.

For many people, modelling is something they do alone at a worktable. But it manages to be a very social hobby too.

These are some of the things we’ve heard again and again, from the people who build models.

Some builds grow into something much bigger than the model itself. Maurice’s Ferrari 250 GTO became the centrepiece of a six-month diorama project created with his friend Charlie – part model making, part storytelling, and very much a shared labour of love

Maurice wrote: "My friend, Charlie and I finally finished our Diorama project. I built the model myself over 8 months. Charlie and I designed and built the diorama over the past 6 months. Needless to say, it was quite an undertaking! Charlie built a cardboard mock-up first, and then from there we used wood and other materials in the diorama's construction. I outsourced Etsy and other suppliers from Japan, China, England, Turkey, and other places to find the exact items in the right scale to make the diorama special and tell its own story. The characters are even real in a sense. I own a full-size Ferrari Roma. D.J., the man on the phone closely resembles the Service Manager at S.F Ferrari, and the mechanic, Billy is also represented. There is also a guy under the car, and the other gentleman speaking with D.J. is the customer. We set the time period around the 1960's. The location could be in Italy, or even here in the states. We added a slight European look and feel to match the car from the classic racing era."

What started with a model became a whole world around it – built from research, imagination, friendship and personal experience

Changing how we think

Over time, that has changed the way we think about what we do.

When we started Agora Models, we were mainly concerned with the things you’d expect: making good kits, getting them to customers when we said we would, and helping when something went wrong.

Those things still matter enormously. But listening to customers has taught us that the reason somebody opens the box in the first place can be much more interesting.

That is why, for World Mental Health Day this year, we didn’t want to write a campaign telling people what model making should do for them. The people who build already have their own answers.

Some talk about concentration. Some about creativity. Some about nostalgia or pride. Some simply say they enjoy having a few hours with something they can become completely absorbed in. They are all valid.

Roger’s photograph says it all — his 1:8 Corvette sitting proudly on the roof of his full-size Corvette. A model with a very personal connection.