6 replies to this topic

[SwimZONE]

Hey everyone, I haven't posted many models on here in recent years, and I wanted some advice on getting motivation to make models again.

While I attribute a large part of my diminishing interest to peer pressure, recent increases in social life, and school work, I think the biggest problem for me is having the patience that I see all amazing builders possess. Jumpge, Fraggie, St33l, Helmut, Gump and other phenomenal builders I haven't mentioned all seem to have long pauses in there updates.

What I mean to ask is, how do you all have so much patience in what you make? My building always goes for a day or two, then I seem to find something else to fill my time because it doesn't seem exciting enough for me or it gets too hard, yet I see coasters in pictures and I suddenly want to build again.

Does anyone else have this problem?

[Jogumpie]

For me, it helps when I have a bigger picture in my mind. With that I can set deadlines for myself and work towards those. It helps building throughout a weekend even when my interest is not that high at that moment. Now I have to be fair, this method has not worked for me the last four or so months.

[Micronex]

While I attribute a large part of my diminishing interest to peer pressure, recent increases in social life, and school work, I think the biggest problem for me is having the patience that I see all amazing builders possess. Jumpge, Fraggie, St33l, Helmut, Gump and other phenomenal builders I haven't mentioned all seem to have long pauses in there updates.

I'm sorta the opposite - I feel like building a lot over a period of a few days (i.e. putting out a few updates near enough one every day) really helps to motivate me to build. Things like the 9 Day Contest especially help - that's why I've entered it twice. Once you come up with an idea and start building with it, and it starts looking good, it seems a lot easier to continue building - and to want to do so as well.

What I mean to ask is, how do you all have so much patience in what you make? My building always goes for a day or two, then I seem to find something else to fill my time because it doesn't seem exciting enough for me or it gets too hard, yet I see coasters in pictures and I suddenly want to build again.

I'm the same sometimes - although again the time constraint helps to motivate me to build. Also, it might be an idea to make a little list of things you want to include on a coaster (i.e. would enjoy building) and then work through that?
Like, if you had a couple elements you've wanted to try (it's the case with my invert - really wanted to test the new spine, make an inverted loop, and double corks), why not try to put them all in one coaster? That might make you want to build.

Just my couple cents - hope it helped.

[Maxlaam]

I adopted Gump's deadline technique for my R80XL model, I managed to hit the deadline and enter it on the last day of ATM.

Generally I build a lot for a few days too when I have a new idea, I want to try and test out my ideas as soon as possible to see if it will work out. When it doesn't I usually quit the coaster or try something else. If it does work I can work a lot on it in a few days, but there will be days that I have to take a rest and regenerate my will to build.

Then again I don't build an awful lot, I tend to build one roller-coaster model a year (mainly because I'm bound to expo's and such). But that doesn't mean I don't like building. XenoX and Super Mouse are still very dear to me.

Smaller builds also tend to keep my attention longer, you can work on smaller details which I really like. I've never really had the urge to build a room-filling coaster myself.

[ForgotToGrowUp]

no one builds slower than me. My current project has been under construction for 14 months. I just have way to many other demands on my time. What keeps me interested is staying in touch with the builds going on here for motivation and ideas. Even though I don't touch any pieces for months I do think about my project a lot. My current obstacle is fitting a switch track into a very tight space. If we get a rainy weekend I might have some time to work on it but the summer is really hard for me to find time. In addition to the model I am also playing with Arduino control system for the first time so I tinker with some of that a bit when I can. I also agree having a plan helps a lot. Since I am doing a recreation and know exactly what has to be built I can see a path to the end. If I didn't know where this was going I probably would have broken it down last summer.

[Jumpge]

Recently I have become more active outside of the building world and occupied with other things. As this happens, I slowly loose that strong urge to build so often.

When finding the time to build becomes tough, I don't stress out about it. When I find free time when I can build, I merely build to build. When I see progress, great! But when I don't see any progress, I wait until I can get progress done and continue on with the coaster.

The build I'm currently working on is probably one of the longest time consuming builds that I've worked on in a while which has both good and bad effects on me. The good thing about this is that I have a lot of time to think, haha. The bad part about this is that I visually see I have made no progress on the coaster which motivates me to finish a build.

Now that it is the summertime, I'm getting to build a lot more meaning the slow building effect won't be an obstacle. Hopefully this effect happens to other builders as well.

[Helmut]

'Dead point' (my own imagination made up this word), that's what I call those moments when building seems too hard or even frustrating. Timbuktu for example, had a dead point as well. The second launch gave me many problems. It was a big challenge for me to get the launch working. But once you fixed it, it makes you feel so proud.