Those Gundam Guys at IPMS Las Vegas Region 8 Competition

This past weekend, Angel and I along with our wives, took the excuse of the IPMS Region 8 show hosted by the IPMS Las Vegas chapter, being held in Vegas; packed up a grip of our gunpla kits and headed out to sin city. They actually have a “Gundam” category as one of three categories under the Sci-Fi umbrella; so Angel and I were under the impression that were was a pretty good gunpla following. There were 5 entrants, 3 from So Cal, and 2 from Las Vegas, one of them being a recent transplant from So Cal. But regardless, its still damn cool they have a Gundam category in lieu of being lumped in with the rest of the Sci-Fi stuff. And we got to plug the crap out of SCGMC!

The event was held this past weekend on Saturday, April 18; at the Riviera Hotel & Casino. The place is the hotel that the movie Casino with Pesci and De Niro. The place is also shutting down next month to be demolished. So at the very least, we got to see the last hurrah of an iconic piece of Las Vegas history.

Like most contests we’ve been attending of late, we dropped in, filled out the paperwork, set up our kits, maybe chatted with a few folks then ran off. With the wives in tow, AND in Vegas, there were other priorities. We asked for more space as there was only 1 gunpla kit on the table. And when we left, there were 11, 10 of those belonging to Angel and I. Hopefully there would be more entrants. But we didn’t wait along for that and went off to have a nice brunch at the Wynn. When we returned to the room after our lunch, we were told that the room was closing in 5 minutes for judging, and didn’t reopen until about 3:45. In hindsight, we should have just hung out until the kicked us out, then went to eat. I did get to meet up with an old competitor Mr. RJ, whom I met well over 10 years ago at an OrangeCon event. He does mostly mods to 1/144 Zeonic kits with German influence and all hand painted. Pretty damn amazing skills. He took first place in the Gundam category. We also met another fellow name Keven who has a blog: http://topmodelplamo.blogspot.com/; you can read more about his entry on his blog. Hopefully he’ll make it out to the SCGMC show in November; Vegas isn’t too far a drive. After a quick chat, the room closed and we were kicked out.

We came back around 3:30 and the room was still closed. Kevan and Mr. RJ was around so we chatted a little more with them. There was another modeler, I believe his name was Daisuke who is from Northern Cali, and I’ve met this guy first at a SCHAMS’s show, then invited him to Orangecon that following year, then to our first SCGMC event. He made it to OrangeCon, that year, and since I haven’t seen him. Good to see that he’s still building. The tiny Japanese Biplane in the pictures below is his; amazing skills. He also builds some gunpla, so hopefully we’ll see him at SCGMC too this November. The announcement were starting up, and I hadn’t taken a single picture. So I got the gopro and the 3D printed steady cam rig I printed the two nights prior, and scanned through all the entries. At least I believe I got everything. The camera work is a little shaking as I was rushing through. I also had to edit out the sound as it was just the awards announcements. 21 minutes of silent model goodness.

So for those that have never been to an IPMS show, this is what things look like. Models separated by categories on tables. Typically, most model shows as well as SCGMC, have the attendee fill out 1 main sheet with a list of all the models they brought; and then several smaller sheets for each model kit. The master list has the entrant’s name and general contact info and a “Contestant ID” is assigned here. The master list stays with the contest organizers (at SCGMC, they stay with the registration girls). The smaller sheets have the contestant ID, the name of the entry, and details about the kit’s build. These sheets are placed under the models and tell the judges what to look for in the kit. Special paints, mods, etc. Without this sheet, the judges have no reference other than looking at the kit; so to help the judges better understand all the hard work put into the kit; filling out this sheet is very important. The sheet also tells the judge that the kit is part of the contest and they need to judge it! This is pretty standard for any model competition.

Video:

Mr RJ ended up with a first place. Angel with second, and I got third in the Gundam category. The odd thing is, we have no idea for what kit; as the kit names that won the awards were never mentioned. This happens far too often at such contest; and reason we started up the SCGMC event; so no complaints here, because we’re already doing our part to rectify the issue. I also got a 3rd place in the large figure category for the Yukari kit; which was pretty damn unexpected.

I did take a quick run with my camera to snap pictures, but I ran out of time as folks were starting to pack up. Here’s what I got: