Lou, KY Wonderfest 2019

Looks like Wonderfest just announced Dr David West Reynolds will be giving his Journey to Tataouine presentation at Wonderfest on Sunday. Any other Star Wars tie ins you know of Jammies? Will you be entering this year?

https://wonderfest.com/upcoming-show/programming/#guestpres

 

I am! At least; I hope too. I had a huge project list that I have narrowed down to two and a half entries. One Star Wars, one from another franchise (I know! and maybe one humor (it hasn't gone beyond the concept phase yet).

WF has some Warz=specific model demos this year, mainly on Friday. And, I think the lead modeller from ILM during Ep 1 will be back (her name escapes me at the moment). I don't think she has her own panel, but she may pop in with John Eves when he does his thing on Saturday.

 

What a cool con!

Highlights for me were:
The Star Wars Concept Art scratch build challenge, where folks from around the globe showed off huge scratch build of ships based on concept art from Joe Johnston and Ralph McQuarrie. I loved the jabba's sail barge my self. they also had a 1/16 scale Falcon! it was huge! And a fully 3d printed x-wing. Like, a good 3-d print not one that looks like it came right out of minecraft.

The how to demos, to me, where really good. i learned a lot (there is still a lot for me to learn about this hobby). I did go to one that was way over my head (and not really of interest to me) but I sat in the front and was too embarrassed to get up and leave in the middle. It was about how to program circuit boards with lynx to interface with led lights (or sounds or motors or speakers or whatever) to add special effects to kits. Kinda neat, but way over my head. As soon as the guy says "so we all know about writing intercept code right> so moving on..."

Dr. David West Reynolds was a treat as always. I hadn't seen his movie, so that was fun to see. And he told some cool stories. i did like the one about how it was actually useful to him to have a bull whip when doing field research as an archaeologist, and how when he asked george how did he know that archaeologists could use a whip when he created indy george deadpained "I didn't. Zorro had a whip. So I gave Indy a whip. I liked whips."

No surprise, but my favorite part of the weekend was the model contest. All of the models I saw were really top notch. Someone even scratch built a huge Nebulon B cruiser. I pulled a few all nighters to get my kit to look good enough to enter. In a huge departure for me I did not do a star wars kit (well, I did but it didn't make it to the contest)! I entered a 1/1000 scale Battleship Yamato from the cartoon Starblazers. I learned about the show from wonderfest past, and the concept of a ww2 battleship with rockets in space is pretty cool so I got a kit just to play with as a "fun relaxing build not meant for a contest." Which of course turned into "this has to be perfect so i can put it in a contest." What I came up with was by no means perfect, but it was pretty. I was happy with my paint job and my weathering-- but I knew I had issues with construction. I kept bending the tiny tiny gun barrels, and in one case they just snapped off (they are super tiny!). I could see the glue marks from where I just gobbed superglue in a few places to keep the turret guns to stay in place. I figured with those errors it may get a merit, and maybe a bronze medal if I was really lucky. On sunday I saw that I did not have a little blue sticky next to my kit-- so that meant no merit. At the end of the con I went to the award show. They said they had a record number of entries at like 825 or something! I remember when it was a big deal that they got up to 501 kits (heh. 501). In the spaceship category, they said they had 6 whole pages of bronze awards to read off-- but sadly they didn't call my name. I was pretty bummed. I mean, I know my ship had issues with bent barrels but I thought it was painted pretty good.

I was so bummed I didn't hear my name as they put my name and a pic of my kit on the screen to come down and claim my silver medal!

I got a flipping Silver Award y'all!

I have never gotten a silver (they don't give too many of them out) before. I am overjoyed. I know the other Yamato got either a silver or a gold, I am not sure. I was still in a state of shock upon holding a Silver trophy in my hand that I do not remember anything after that. I guess next year I gotta win Gold now.

MTFBWY
Jammies

 

That is AWESOME!! I know you'll bring it (the award) to show next week right? Congratulations. Yes, we will accept nothing less than a gold next year

 

It's a major award!