I’m glad to be writing for this website again. I really enjoyed writing this last review and I’ve hopefully gotten over my general malaise and writer’s block. There are many reasons I took more than a year off, and I might elaborate on them at some point. But for now, I’m back and doing my best.
This isn’t my usual Dragon Fortress Fare, but it is tangentially related to my childhood interests, so we’ll say that it fits the bill well enough and go with it. And, if it’s not for you and doesn’t suit your interests, you can always come back for the next one.
I own many, many Gundam action figures. I prefer action figures to model kits. But when you start watching Gundam Build Fighters and Build Divers, something starts to happen inside your brain. Damn you, 30 minute toy commercials disguised as cartoons…
I recently built the first Gundam model kit I’ve attempted in over two decades. It was not an easy process and the results weren’t spectacular, but perfection wasn’t the desired outcome. I’m not some woo-woo TikTok influencer, but the journey was still the entire point of this endeavor.
Building this kit was an exercise in patience, overcoming challenges, and giving myself grace. And, on that level, it met my expectations.
As many of you know, I am disabled. I try not to harp on it too much, especially because it’s not the most visible disability, but it does affect my life and who I am as a person. In short, I have very, very shaky hands, poor motor skills, and bad hand/eye coordination. It gets worse with each passing year. There are many days where I can barely raise a glass of water to my mouth, let alone pose and photograph an army doll.
I’m not saying this to throw myself a pity party or drum up sympathy, I’m just stating it because it was the motivation for this entire project. In general day-to-day life I’m just fine and many people may not even notice that I have a disability. But it’s still something that I deal with and it has an impact on everything I do, including my toy-related interests.
So I thought returning to a hobby I enjoyed as a teenager, one that requires some amount of steadiness and precision, might be a good thing for me. This little blog post documents my journey.
The Dragon Fortress 