Gold and Silver at DesertCon on 10/23/04

The local IPMS chapter held their annual DesertCon modelling contest yesterday in El Paso. 1st time the event has been held in the last 4 years and it showed. Lots of disorganization and scattered methods but not bad for shaking off the rust. Had entrants from Albuquerque to Lubbock, so lots of diversity. Their major goof was adding OOTB categories and not telling anyone. I had three kits (the two Stugs from the GB and the Wirbelwind) that should have competed as OOTB but were left in the non-OOTB category. I learned of this after the judging had already been completed and didn't raise a fuss about it.

This was my first outing in the world of contests. Took home two medals out of 5 entries, so feel pretty good about it especially since I barely made it out of the hospital to be able to enter and was horribly worried that I wouldn't make it in.

I took silver in the AFV to 1945 category with the Hummel. It deserved to compete in this non-OOTB category as it had a scratchbuilt tarp and parts from other kits included in the fighting compartment. The base kit was Dragon's 1/35 Initial with parts added from various Tamiya kits for the fighting compartment crew equipment.



I took gold in the Artillery all-periods category with the Leopold. Lots of spectators kept asking how long it had taken to build this "monster" and their jaws dropped when I said 21 days... Moving it the 10 miles or so proved a huge logistical challenge, have no idea how it could be moved for anything other than a local event. Don't think I could bear moving it again... [:0]