One thing I have learned in the hobby (and this week) is that not every experiment I try will be a success. Sometimes I will fail. Sometimes mildly or sometimes majorly. That’s the nature of the beast known as experimentation.

Can’t experiment without failure is a lesson I learned before gunpla back when I was a biology major (before switching to criminology). I was tasked with transforming a plasmid (a funky little gene structure) called pGLO into E. coli. The plasmid pGLO has a gene that when expressed, which is fluorescence. I was not very good at biology. Not one bit. It was a struggle but I had a professor who was very supportive. With some work, I got an E. coli colony to grow and glow! Then it molded. I was not given a chance to redo it.

The end. The moral of the story is that you can try to experiment and no matter what you do, it can fail. (Then switch majors and read science stuff for fun)

This story applies to many things I’ve done in my hobbies as well. I’ve done so many experiments with gunpla that have resulted in more failures than successes. You can’t have one without the other.

Now, failure is a word most people don’t want to hear or a thing they don’t want to experience. No one wants to fail but at the same time, no one is born perfect at anything.

Society wants us to think failure is a bad thing but I think it’s a good thing! Failure can teach us that:

1. There might be no right way to do something. What works for someone else may not work for you.
2. You might not know what you’re capable of doing until you try it.
3. You’re gonna fail before you succeed at anything.
4. Flexibility or the ability to adapt and modify.
5. Mistakes are okay.
6. Failures teach us what works and what doesn’t.
7. Most people don’t care about failures as much as our brains think they do.

Sometimes when I start to experiment with something, hydro dipping, for example, there will be a series of failures and duds.

I found out a while back that you can hydro dip gunpla with spray paint, which is really great! I like doing it but there are just a few things that I’m not fond of when it comes to spray paint. Spray Paint can be a little moody when it comes to weather. Too humid, too hot, too cold. It can impact how it goes down. Also, as odd as it is to say this, I don’t want the texture all the time.

So this week, I’ve been on a journey to hydro dip. I tried to dip with acrylic paint specifically meant for hydro dipping.

I grabbed my trusty plastic spoons (The best test tool to have for any painting hobby) and primed them with a few different colors. Set up the water exactly as the paint said. Dripped the paint in. Dipped the spoons in and nothing.

Some paint stuck and some just kinda slid off. I took this failure as a mental note that hey, this way didn’t work. What if I tried this?

Tried it with enamel paints. Did not work well but I did make some mental notes about thinning out the paints next time I try it. A failure but one I could make notes off of.

After more digging, I found another thing that might do the job and will keep you updated if it works or not.

That being said, the whole process above could be frustrating to some or even anxiety-causing.

There’s always a risk that an experiment won’t work out the way we want it to. It can be damaging to our egos. However, the more time goes on and the more we experiment and fail, the more we can mature into our confidence. We can take those risks and self-doubts in stride and know when to push them aside in the pursuit of what we want. Also, I think the anxiety and doubt we face when we think of the idea of failure is worse than the actual failure itself.

I used to get upset when I failed at something. Now I just say “aw shit” and move on.

I wish more people in any of my hobbies, and even ones outside of them did the experimenting and things they talk about. Do you want to see if you can glue buttons on a Sazabi? Rad, give it a try. What’s worse than can happen? A Mistake? Learn from it and go on to the next thing. 

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Woo! 50th blog and I appreciate all my readers who have come and supported the blog!

I hope you found this post enjoyable. Have any questions or opinions? If so share them in the comments.

Happy Thursday everyone!

-J