A major modeling milestone

 Sorry I have not posted much lately. I've been working on models almost every single day, knowing that the time is coming soon...probably next week, if history is any indication...where it will be too cold to go outside and paint. There will be lots of time for cards then, but for now, I'm making the most of my modeling time. And have I ever! 2021 is by far and away my best year in modeling ever. As I'm writing this on October 30th, I've completed 97 models...shattering my personal record of 62, which I set only last year! And I'm not done yet...I expect to hit around 115 builds for the year. I just came back in from putting the final clearcoat on 7 more builds, which I just have to wait for them to dry before I can final assembly them and complete them. And that's just this round, there are more. 

I hit a MAJOR career milestone on October 11th, when I completed my 300th build! It's actually kind of amazing...I began building back in 2005, yet, roughly 1/3rd of my career builds were built in 2021. And not only that, but since I came back to this aspect of the hobby last year, not only has my production output gone up, the build quality has as well. I know, without a doubt, that I could not have done this quality of work before I took the break in 2014. I've learned new skills, I've gotten new tools that weren't available to me before, and I've got a new mindset as well....in the past, if I messed up a project it was pretty much done for...I didn't know how to fix it. Now I do, and if I make a mistake...and believe me, I still make plenty...it's not the end of the world (or at least the end of that model). I can fix it. And even if I have a problem where I can't fix something right now...I fully expect to develop the skills to fix it in the future. Of the first 300 builds, 62 of them were built in 2021. 25 more in 2020. I'm already a quarter of the way to build #400! 

I used PhotoScape to make this collage of all 300 builds, in the order that I completed them! You can see not only my building skills but also my photography skills improve over time. 

I did a little number crunching for my post about the milestone on Facebook, well, I let Excel do it. 

Here's a screenshot of the Facebook post, no need to reinvent the wheel. However, I thought up two more categories to check since I made the post, well, one of them I thought up and one a friend suggested. 

Most numbers built is a tie between #07 and #7, with 9 builds each. #37 has 7 builds, while #27 and 44 both have 6 builds. No other number cleared 5, (I've actually completed another #07 but not in the first 300. It's also a Robby Gordon build which would have tied him for first but since these stats I've finished another Raines and will finish another Mayfield within the week)

Teams was the one suggested by my friend, and that was something I had never figured out before right now. 

• 11 Chip Ganassi Racing
• 10 Hendrick Motorsports
• 9 Roush Racing + 1 more Roush-Fenway Racing. It's the same team, it just changed names. 
• 8 Front Row Motorsports
• 8 Haas-CNC Motorsports
• 8 Richard Childress Racing

No other team had more than 5 at the time but that has also changed with the aforementioned Robby Gordon build which was the 6th for Robby Gordon Motorsports. 

At the current rate I'm building, I'll have to update the stats for each 100 builds every year! And to be quite honest, I hope so. I'm looking forward to it! 

To make the giant picture above I made smaller collages of 100 cars each, which I will now post here...

It's slightly easier to see them here. 

I can't remember what I've posted, so here are also my first 75 builds of 2021. I know that the first one has been shown but not sure on the second two. 

Next year marks my 30th anniversary of collecting 1/64 NASCAR diecast, and I've decided to celebrate, I will finish my NASCAR by the Numbers project in this scale...I'm pretty close right now. I have the decals to finish every number, although I don't have all the donors yet. I am not sure which number will be the last to be completed. I'll go into the year with only 8 or possibly 9 numbers left to build, I'm not sure yet if I will finish #05 this year or not. The numbers I will need to build next year are #39, 54, 63, 65, 86, 87, 91 and 94. 

Thank you for reading.