Early this morning (27 August), my friend and fellow IPMS/Gateway member Don Will arrived at my house. We left in my car around 6:40 am for Liberty, Missouri (northeast of Kansas City) to attend this year's ModelFest, a scale modeling contest and vendor meet presented by IPMS/West Central Missouri at Liberty Christian Fellowship.
After an uneventful drive, Don and I arrived at the show site and registered our entries in the model contest. I brought three models: an A6M2 Zero in aircraft, a 155mm M1 Gun in Armor, and the USS Alabama in Naval. After placing my models in the contest area, I bought raffle tickets, browsed among the vendors, and chatted with several people I knew who were attending the show from around IPMS/USA Region 14.
Additionally, I admired the models being entered in the contest. There were some superb models on display this day.
At midday, I joined with other contest judges at a meeting, where we had free pizza for lunch. The head judge gave a short briefing on what we should look for in contest entries, and the judging teams were assembled. I was with two other judges evaluating entries in Gundam, Dioramas, Space and Science-Fiction, and Ships. (I recused myself from judging the category the Alabama was entered in.) Gundam was a large category, with over 30 entries--so many, in fact, that this category was split into large and small categories. Our team judged this category first. I didn't have much knowledge and experience in Gundam models; fortunately, my teammates were more knowledgeable and helped me out. With this category out of the way, we went on to the other assigned categories.
During a break in judging, I checked the raffle table and found that two of the 12 tickets I bought earlier were pulled. I got two kits: one of World War II Italian soldier figures, and the other of the Kfir C2/C7 fighter. Earlier, I won an RF-4C/E Phantom II kit in the raffle. This looks like the $10 I paid for the tickets had a great return on investment.
After judging for my assigned categories, I finished taking photos of the contest entries. (I started taking photos that morning.) These will be posted on the IPMS/Gateway Facebook page. I also shopped among the vendors, buying a small aircraft kit from one and three sheets of aircraft profile paintings from another.
Around 3:00 pm, the awards ceremony began, after representatives from several clubs with upcoming shows spoke to the crowd. That included me, as I plugged IPMS/Gateway's Gateway to the West Invitational in two weeks (10 September). My name was called twice, beginning with my M1 taking First Place in Armor & AFVs--1:72 and Smaller, wheeled & artillery, all eras. In Naval, my Alabama was Second in 1:700 and smaller. I should note that there were only two entries in each of these categories. However, I was pleasantly surprised to earn First Place in Armor.
