This past Sunday was the 25th Anniversary ValleyCon event. Damn, SCGMC is coming up on 5 years…. I can only hope to be as successful to get another 20 years. This year was different from the past several years that I’ve attended – they held the contest at the Ronald Reagan Library, under the old 707 Air Force One. Damn cool. There were also cars on loan from the Peterson Auto Museum as well as an old Marine One. We were allowed into Air Force One and Marine One, but no pictures were allowed inside. Damn cool to walk the insides of these aircraft.
It was a very impressive show. They had over 600 entries. There were alot of amazing entries and I didn’t have time to snap pictures of everything because there was just so much more to see and do that the library.
Some more details and commentary after the jump.
The sci-fi table was huge, as it always is at this show; yet, they always seem to be surprised that there are so many sci-fi subjects entered that they need to move or add additional tables. They had three categories for their sci-fi, Star Wars/Star Trek/BattleStar Galactica, Creatures/Robots/Figures, and Sci-fi Other. Granted it would be cool to have more definition between the categories; but it’s not my show; they’re successful with how they’ve ran it for 25 years, why make changes now? My Yukari figure, the SD Glaug, and the 10 lb GM Can’t Swim paper weight went into competition with Angel’s Neo Zeong and Unicorns and Mike’s MG Nu, MG Geara Doga, and kshatriya. Also in this category were all the sci-fi figures, busts, a black painted Super Valkyrie, Deloreans, and everything else that wasn’t Battle Star Wars/Trek. There was a Sci-Fi other which was a catchall for everything else. Again, it would be cool if they did a sci-fi vehicles, sci-fi robotic, and sci-fi creatures as categories; but that’s what I’m used to from another show. And all shows have their own style.
At this contest, there were alot of folks that took some old toys and assembled them or repainted them, and they look pretty good from a distance, but moving a little closer, there are some seams and issues that were not addressed. This group has a good number of hollywood artists, so I believe I see the hollywood style of building was in effect.
Sean brought his commission 1/200 Yamato commission kit out after recently finishing the beast. We’ve seen him building parts of this kit over the past year at several build gatherings. It’s good to see it finally finished. Amazing work. And he seriously undercharged, the guy getting the kit is getting an amazing deal. Here are some pictures.
Below are just some of the entries I particularly liked. I usually get some really good inspiration for dioramas and weathering ideas at these shows. There is a Frodo figure painted with great use of shadowing to show a single light source from his lantern. A damn nice paint job. The Love Bug garage is damn cool too.
The Bandai star wars kits are pretty nice too. I may have to amazon some of these kits. The Minion plane made me chuckle.
Mike Wine took a first place for the Sci-fi Creature/Robots/Figures category, for his display, as he had three kits and they just rewarded him for all three. Valleycon does this for several folks that enter a good number of kits into one category. I got a second place for the Yukari in the same category. The best Sci-Fi went to the giant repainted Hasbro Millenium Falcon. I’m quite surprised that Yukari even placed as there were some really amazing figure and other mecha kits on display. Then again, it’s a bunch of guys judging, and massive cleavage and nylon stockings do attract some attention :D
The rest of the pictures I took from the event are here: http://gamerabaenre.com/?page_id=3451
The highlight of the day happened at the very end of the show as we were packing up. Some guy that had a display table at the back of the show was screaming at some poor museum staff saying he was outraged and highly offended that they had a car on display that belonged to Saddam Hussein. As if it was the staffer’s responsibility. Also aside from the fact that the guy has a table at a model competition (model aircraft clube called Black Sheep Squadron), where subjects like WWII, the Gulf War, swastikas, Nazis, etc are all meticulously reproduced in scale. Seriously, pot meet kettle? The icing is that as the guy storms off towards his table after his tirade, he SPITS on the car. WTF?
Their table is at the back right side of this picture and at the very back corner, you can see the front of Hussein’s Mercedes. Stay classy older white dude at the model competition…
