Well, just back and decompressed from this year's MMSI Chicago show. This one was a bit of a family trip for us. My wife, son and his girlfriend came along. They visited the show briefly Friday night, and while I attended Saturday, they went into the city to visit museums. Science and Industry, and the Art Institute were on the agenda. It seems that one museum is enough for one day and two proved to be over ambitious.
A few words about the show; I thought the tables in the display are seemed a little sparse. I know several regulars weren't there. I don't know the reasons, but I can think of several that didn't make it this year. There was no shortage of quality this year. I'm always amazed at how some of these folks can paint and sculpt such beautiful pieces. This year seems to have heralded the return of the shadow box diorama. There were several on the tables this time around. These are always a sight to behold. I've toyed around with it in the past and hope to involve myself in a more ambitious project soon. More on that later. I sat in on both seminars this year, which I seldom do. Doug Cohen gave a talk on creating vignettes. He reinforced many things I already thought about the subject. It's still a treat to see how someone puts together a piece. I also sat in on the Sunday seminar, "Fostering Creativity in the Hobby". It was moderated by Jim Derogatis, and paneled by Fletcher Clement, Joe Berton, and Shep Paine. These fellows are some of the most creative guys to wield a brush. It was very interesting and I'm glad my wife talked me into staying later than planned to attend. I had a great time visiting with old friends and meeting some new. Sharing and talking shop is the best thing you can do at the shows.
The photos this time are of my medal winning pieces from the show. I decided to enter competition this time around. I skipped competing last year, and again at Tulsa. I didn't feel like my work was Gold quality at these shows and with a wash-tub full of lesser medals, decided that if I didn't think I was doing gold work, I'd skip competing for a bit until I could get back to that quality. So 1/2 isn't bad. For the last few years I've been on g/s cusp, getting gold about half the time. But the rest of the modelers seem to be making advances at a pace that I'm finding it difficult to match. Some of this is due to the training I put myself through the last couple of years. More on that here
Tri-Blog if you want the boring details. So all that to say, I was very happy to achieve a Gold medal for the paratrooper diorama. I think I was close on the trench raider, but haven't seen the score card.
My good friend Kreston Peckham has started a modelling blog and here's the link;
Kreston's Blog. I'll try to be more diligent about posting on my own blog, and when I can remember how I'll add some links. Now that summer's over and indoor activities are taking over, it should be a little easier to let you into my world of model building.
