Those Gundam Guys

Those Gundam Guys is the official group name for the random collection of gunpla, mecha, and anime figure modelers that gather once a month in Southern California to build, laugh at one another, and sometimes drink copious amounts of alcohol all the while trying to sing and play rockband without failing. This group has been gathering since July 2007. When asked if we had a name to our “club” the usual response was a shrug, we were just a bunch of modelers that liked to build plastic robots, why make anything official. Almost like some creepy underground movement.

The idea for naming the group came about again last year when we were asked to sponsor a trophy for the 2010 IPMS OC OrangeCon event. Still we half-assed a name to use on the trophy placard. We spent all of 10 minutes trying to come up with stupid witty acronyms for our group, but still wasn’t able to find something good enough. And nothing stuck. Fast forward a few months later when the idea of naming the group had long vacated our memories; a group of us come up with the brilliant idea of hosting our own competition. Tired of griping and whining at the end of every model competition we attend where we’re just looked at and talked to as little more than glorified toy painters; it’s time we shut the hell up and just see if we could do something.

So officially, the group is named Those Gundam Guys. True, there are a few women in the group that build, but it’s just a generic term. We could as easily used That Gundam Girl, or Those Gundam Geeks to be completely non gender specific. But TGG is simple and it’s what the IMPS and other modelers have been calling us this whole time, so why the hell not just own it.

The past month or so saw the development of an actual gunpla centric model competition. Tired of trying to grab the attention of con goers at conventions such as Anime Expo and other such events, as well as fed up with a failure in judging competency when it comes to our genre of model building; we set forth to organize our own competition. And born is the Southern California Gundam Model Competition. Much like the SCAHMS show which is focused on historical miniature figures but allows a wide range of model genres; SCGMC is focused on Gundam, but all genres of science fiction and anime are welcomed.

With the SCGMC plans set, we needed something official sounding as the backing to our first endeavor into the Model Competition events circuit. Along with then name, we have a website as well: http://thosegundamguys.org The site is a communal gunpla/mecha/anime figure blog site for the folks at the build gathering. The further promote the hobby and expand learning is the ultimate goal for the site. The site also serves as a calendar for up coming model related events.

The site is still a work in progress and there will be more and more content added as we continue to build.