This past weekend, a few of Those Gundam Guys got together for a meeting regarding SCGMC. Interestingly enough, this was the first official meeting we’ve ever had. We’ve gotten two years experience under our belts; so this meeting was to reflect on what we learned form the previous years and how we can improve the event starting with the one coming in November. Most of the issues dealt with better organization which we definitely need. And if we are able to follow through with 90% of what we have planned from the meeting, we’ll definitely be vastly improved from the previous year.
But the one other issue that came up is a problem that I’ve seen at most model contest. Well, not so much a problem, but a pattern. At various shows in various categories, there’s usually a modeler that consecutively wins year to year. Now, this isn’t too big a deal at various shows as they’re larger and the categorical scope is much wider in terms of included model genres.
SCGMC is fairly niche, and as a collection of builders; it was noted that there was a general disappointment when ever one of Those Gundam Guys won in SCGMC. The first year, a number of us recluse ourselves from the contest; but last year, a majority of us entered. We didn’t completely take over the show, but a number of us won awards. The point of view that we were given from some of the other staffers at the event is that we’re going to end up scaring away entrants if we continue to enter our own projects into the contest. Now, we created this contest so that we can focus on a genre we love, help promote such model building, and have some fun competing against one another. So to completely remove ourselves form the contest kinda kills the whole reason we started this in the first place.
Last year we introduced the beginner’s category. This year, the idea is to have three levels of competition, well, sort of. Realistically the main competition will be the Advanced level with the usual 6 categories. Then book-ending the main categories will be the Beginner/intermediate and the Expert categories that will be all scales and all subjects. The idea uses the bell curve, for the contest levels. All categories will still be flexible that there can be splits if there are enough entries. The idea is to push for a higher level of competition with the folks in the advanced level. These are folks that are starting to airbrush, getting mods into the kits, doing conversion kits, etc.
The expert level. Suggested requirement as follows:
Won a 1st place or best of show at previous SCGMC event.
Additional Those Gundam Guys restriction
TGG staff that has won a 1st place or best of show at a previous SCGMC event are only allowed to enter this category.
This is the compromise. This sort of recluses some of the TGG staff from the advanced level competition, but allows all TGG staff to still compete in the contest. This level is also open to anyone that enters the contest. The one stipulation for this category is that it limits only 1 entry per person – because of all the works one brings, the competition for this particular category should be your very best work to date. This level is highly encouraged for those that have won 1st level awards or even the Best of Show awards from the previous SCGMC events. The goal here is to level the playing field while still pushing for a higher level of competition. Hopefully it isn’t overly complicated as I’ve tried to simplify this as much as possible.
66 Days away and counting down!
