This past weekend was Pasadena Modelers Society’s annual contest Valley Con. A group of us from the build gatherings showed up and just ended up filling the table with gunpla. For which none of us won anything. There were quite a few very well done kits, but some of the things that won just boggled our minds a little. Oh well, what can you do when they lump all the science fiction into two categories: mechanical and creature. Odd that they’d add a category such as “Armored Trains” which had about 4 or 5 kits total, instead of better organizing the science fiction category. But for most of us sci-fi model builders, we’re used to being thrown into a corner and not having people give a rats ass about us. It’s even more niche and worse for the gundam modelers.
Here are the gundam kits we all entered. Angel threw in the 00 team, his Musha, and Zeta; I have my GM Sniper Custom; Brandon with his Marsai; John with the Zaku and GM Spartan; and Dan with his Hazel team and an Enact. Together, there were about 17 gunpla kits in the category with 18 non gunpla kits. Hopefully if we keep hammering these contest with gunpla kits we’ll force the contest directors to take some note and maybe a little respect.
Regardless, I think our presence at these events in such numbers should get a little notice and some chatter.
The cool things that was there when we first got there was a fully scratch built Optimus Prime. And it was transformable. Damn cool. Talking to the guy who built it; he said it took him about 5 months and it was done all in styrene. He used the masterpiece optimus and just scaled it up by a factor or three. Oh, and did I mention that the fucking thing transforms? Yeah, damn cool. And he didn’t win anything for it. Really?
I entered my Velvet into the Sci-Fi creatures category, and was able to win 2nd place. Here is a sampling of the entries. Monsters, witches, dinosaurs, etc – the hodgepodge collection of the “catch all” category.
Some cool planes, and I believe that some of these were winners. Also in the bunch is Dan’s P-51 buzzing the Krauts; very nice with the addition of the pitch fork.
Armor
Cars
Figures. I entered my Cosette in this category. Interesting that people entered the same two kits, a German officer and pilot. It’s interesting to see the comparison between the two kits.
A very cool figure was the “full metal jacket”. Boobies FTW!
Ships and such.
The above is a VERY small sampling of the pictures that Dan took. Since I didn’t have good batteries for my camera, he took all the pictures. The rest of the pictures are here: http://gamerabaenre.com/valleycon10.htm
