WonderFest USA 2006

[filmmkr]

Be there or be square!

www.wonderfest.com/


I'll be in on Friday afternoon, bringing three models:

Ryomou Shimei




Yayoi Fujisawa




. . . and either Agent Venus or Cerberus Project's BeNew Girl, done as a little diorama that I'm doing called "Judi Jetson Grows Up".

I can prolly get Judi done quicker 'cause I am still fighting the piss-poor Mike James cast on Venus:




I'm also banging out the Bandai Tumbler Batmobile that I might enter in vehicles.

Anyone else planning to attend?

Filmy

[Phantom Major]

alas i'm in scotland but i would be most grateful if you could take a camera along and get some pictures !!!!

[figurator]

and Im broke so I cant goo ... please take pictures....especially the babes from 80mm to 1/1 scale!!

[drhall]

Ah, so close! I may actually be able to swing it.

;D Dave

[paintinfool]

I will be making my first ever trip this year. I am really looking forward to it. I hear this is the number one place to see what we do.

[filmmkr]

Just finished the first full day, and man what a show! This is not my first rodeo, as I have been modeling for over forty years and attending major shows for the last decade, but I have to say that this is the best show I have ever been to, and I will most definitely be back next year.

The vendor room is mind-boggling! I bought an early bird vendor room pass (get in two hours before the general public) and spent $750 in the first half hour. Yikes!

I've already emptied the on-site ATM, and I'm waiting until tomorrow to buy several more kits, including Monster Dork Studios' Kiss the Cook and two of Solarwinds' Countess Karnstien kits. I am also eyeing a zombie kit and a couple of busts. Looks like I will end up spending close to $1,200 on kits, parts, paints, and magazines. Ai-Yi-Yi!!!

I entered Ryomou and Yayoi in the contest, and I must say that there are so many awesome kits here. They have finished the judging and have already put out the Awards of Merit. I guess they will give out the Bronze, Silver, and Golds tomorrow at a ceremony. Nothing for my girls so far, but I have my fingers crossed!

I have attended seminars by David Fisher, Saul Alvarez, Steve Riojas and Dan Colonna, Terry Webb, and Joe Nejberger.

I have no idea what paintinfool looks like or I would find him and say hello. Ah well . . .

I've taken quite a few photos, but I don't have a cble to load them to my laptop, and I didn't bring the software so I can use the WiFi feature on my new Coolpix S6. I'll have to post 'em when I get home.

Filmy

[Phantom Major]

man you are so lucky, the big figure show over is in July and i am working and will have to miss it :-(

i think i gotta see this show next year and i'll have to start saving now coz i know i'm gonna blow the budget, talk about a kid in a candy store lol

[paintinfool]

Wow! What a show. Usually when I go to a convention, I have to shop around all the the dealer tables just to find the couple of available resin kits. Then I have to decide if I really want to buy and/or build what is available. Not at this show. Every table had dozens of top notch stuff.
Talking to the guys that designed and molded these kits has given me much insite about this hobby. I now appreciate all the effort these guys have gone through to deliver us their products.
flmmkr I saw your kits on display in the contest area. Unfortunately I had to leave before the awards ceremony to drive the 1000+ miles back to Florida. I hope you got some awards. your girls looked very nice. Likewise, I didn't know what you looked like, but I am sure we were sitting close by in many of the demonstrations.
I brought a couple of girls for the after hours Adult Resin Attack. This was in all a very in impressive showing, as it had 42 entries to look at. I am glad to see their are many others out there that enjoy our aspect of the hobby.
This was an amazing show and well worth the long drive. I bought so many kits, I don,t think I need to go back for a couple of years. As it will take me that long to build what I bought. Who am I kidding? I am all ready looking forward to next year.

[filmmkr]

Well, for what its worth, here's what I look like:






As I mentioned before, I spent waaaaaay too much money in the vendor room on Saturday, but I was able to reign myself in on day two. Here are some photos of all the stuff I had to find a way to get home. (Can you imagine trying to pack all this stuff?)

TSA opened everything I had to take a look. Some of the resin kits looked like C4 I guess, and I had all those sculpting tools and hemostats packed together, too.




A couple of t-shirts, the aforementioned tools, three skulls from Paul at Ultratumba, an autographed script from the original pilot of Lost in Space, and a really cool book about the filming of 2001:




Magazines, more skulls, a new series of paints (Lifetones), a skull base that I picked up for two bucks, and three generic resin bases that I scored for a buck (total!):




A Herman Munster bust and my Aves score. After attending all the seminars by David Fisher (AFM and Modelmania), Saul Alvarez, Mike Wallace, et al, I am going to try to take my game up a few notches, specifically with oils, shading, and lots of nuance and detail, so I'm gonna practice on Herman. I wanna paint like the big boyz!

[filmmkr]

And now the kits! This is where I really went nuts, dollar-wise. I'm proud of myself, though, 'cause I made a list on Saturday of eight more kits I wanted to buy, but I only scored one more on Sunday.

The kit on the left is called The Lobotomy, and it is awesome! The one on the right is Mr. Freeze by a new company called Squidkidsink. I bought the very first one they ever sold, as they premiered the kit at Wonderfest and it was the first kit I bought on Saturday morning, about 8:15 a.m. I knew when I saw it that I HAD to have it, so I didn't even hesitate.





Here are the built-ups of Mister Freeze and The Lobotomy:

[filmmkr]

Naturally I had to have a Countess Karnstein from Solarwind Productions. They had SO many gorgeous kits, I had a very difficult time trying to decide which one I wanted.



Here's the built-up on display at the Solarwinds table:






This is Ultratumba's Aztec Mummy kit. The gashopons and that bigass Gundam were prizes.

[filmmkr]

Re: the contest itself, I guess the judges were blind or something. :blink:

The way the awards work is that they judge the models against a standard instead of against one another. I kinda like it this way, because you aren't "competing" against the other modelers per se, but against a certain ideal. The judges don't *have* to award a Bronze, Silver, and Gold in each category if there is not a deserving model in that category. In fact, not every category had a Gold winner, but some had more than one. I think they gave out 8 or 10 Golds out of something like 400 models.

Somehow (don't ask me, I'm just a beginner) I won a Silver for Yayoi and a Gold for Ryomou, plus Best Anime and Best Gundam (!?!?!?!).

There were two Golds in anime (the other was for an incredible Tsukasa Jun "Selen" with a lighted scratchbuilt stand). I also won a special award (the two gashapons) from the show promoter (Dave Hodge) for Best Anime, and *GASP!* a special award (that big-ass Gundam) for Best Gundam (for Yayoi). :wacko: :wacko: I dunno how I beat out all the mechas - maybe because Yayoi is a pilot? They made a mistake and thought she was a robot? I dunno, but the kit is way cool!

Anyway, I was shocked when they kept calling my name to come up for awards. This was the first time I had ever even attended WF, and I most certainly did not expect to win anything - hell, I woulda been delighted just to get a Merit award or a bronze medal! :lol:

Well paintinfool, I wish we woulda known what the other looked like - we coulda hooked up for a visit!

Hope all you other guys can make it next year - I know I'll be back!!

[JJCap1]

Congratulations on all of the well deserved awards!

Jim

[Phantom Major]

man i am so jealous of you guys, i really wish i had been there and i hope too next year...i guess i need to start getting the overtime going at work ...who knows if my figure sales pick up i might be able to fund a trip that way !

[Model Citizen]

admin said:

man i am so jealous of you guys, i really wish i had been there and i hope too next year...i guess i need to start getting the overtime going at work ...who knows if my figure sales pick up i might be able to fund a trip that way !

Me too. I'm seriously thinking of going next year. I reckon I'll have to start saving soon though. First thing will be to get my passport renewed
A bit nearer the time, if I've saved enough I'll see if there's any other UK'ers who want to meet up and share a room, help cut the cost a bit, and if they've been before, help me get there in one piece ;D