LOL good deal Ezra, I’m happy someone actually read it!
The story coming is ugly…I mean its like Rosie O’donnell and Sarah Jessica Parker’s illegitimate love child ugly.
3 Likes
I frequented a bookstore that carried wargames (along with romance novels) in Stockton, California. There was a group who met almost every afternoon and they played War in the East once. The map and counters were on the wall with pins stuck through them. One person would come in and make his moves one day, then a few days later the other player would make his. The owner witnessed die rolls for battles and recorded them.
Before that, they had Drang Nach Osten set up on a table but it took so much room in the store. I remember the huge stacks of units that needed special tweezers to move them.
1 Like
Why I Quit Model Building Forever At Age 15
The Scharnhorst took forever to build. Everything was airbrushed - using Propel cans. I’d buy a can paint. Run out
Earn money, then have to talk my parents or uncle into taking me to a hobby shop so I could buy more Propel.
Finally my uncle said, “Wade how many more cans of this $hit do you need to finish that damn ship?”
Obviously he was tired of going out of his way to haul me his brat nephew to the hobbyshop. I said, “Two cans.”
He bought me four cans:)
It took three and a half 
My uncle was a very wise man:)
Anyway, the Heller KM Scharnhorst got finished. It was the very best model I had ever built at that time. Even my parents acknowledged it was the best of the lot - despite being a Nazi battlecrusier.
Anyway, on a family outing for a visit to the mall and dinner, I get to go to the hobby shop and what do I see?
A big stack of flyers for the most incredible awesome thing EVER - a two day IPMS model contest convention in downtown Charlotte, North Carolina!!!
There were over sixty or seventy categories. There like six categories for kids for juniors aka modelers under the age of 17 - like me because I’m like almost 15
What a chance in a life time to meet other kids my age into model building !
At the time I didn’t even know there was a such a thing as a model contest before seeing that flyer.
Obviously, it’s like life or death serious I MUST GO TO THE MODEL CONTEST! Oh Regional? Whatever it’s a big event focused on my hobby. MUST GO!
“NO NO NO. We aren’t going to Charlotte for a model contest. That’s an hour and half one way drive. Do have any idea how much GAS that would waste? No your NOT going to ask your uncle Ed to take you either You’re NOT Going. End of discussion etc etc”
Bratty kids with asperger syndrome can be really annoying. That show seemed like it was the most important thing in the world. So yes, I drove my parents absolutely crazy being a super annoying pain in the butt. Punishment didn’t matter I kept nagging about that contest. I also did everything else like I was supposed to etc. I just wouldn’t let go of it.
The month before the IPMS contest- they finally relented. We would go it would be a family event. My dad even signed up for the catered banquet dinner for the awards ceremony so we could see the whole ball of wax.
For this show you were NOT allowed in the awards ceremony area unless you paid for the banquet dinner. You could stand in the hall and hope you could hear your name called through the door if you placed.
I was confident my four models would be competitive in juniors. Well actually I was overconfident based on how well I built vs how well my friends built.
The line up…
- Armor - 1/25 scale Tamiya Tiger 1
- Ship - 1/400 KM Scharnhorst
- Aircraft - 1/48 F18 Hornet (Monogram prototype)
- Sci-Fi K’tinga D7 Klingon BattleCrusier painted in Aztec pattern
Finally the special Saturday mornimg came:) It was electrifying like Christmas when your six years old but a dozen times better.
I crated up the models and off to Charlotte from the sticks we went.
My mother was not happy. Naturally, my parents get into an argument almost the instant we pulled out of the driveway. My dad admonished her - reminding her she’d promised not to ruin the day.
We arrived at the convention around 10 am It was already crowded:) Kits were everywhere! Tables and tables of kits of everything you could imagine.
I had enough money to pay my entry fees for the four models. 
So what’s a brat do?
Ask you know who for you know what…
About that …
“Look son, this is already costing $150 between gas, breakfast, lunch and banquet dinner. That very expensive for something only you are interested in. Don’t you think that’s enough?”
Mom got in on the action, “One more word out of you about wanting money for this and we’ll be on our way home.”
It was nicest tall tasty glass of STFU and quit whinging kid, I think I ever had.
At registration the whole thing nearly blew up in my face. I was asked how many RAFFLE tickets 
I wanted to buy. Well I wanted to buy all of them but I didn’t have money beyond registration fees.
Before I could speak my dad cut lose.
Being a good Godly knee-jerk fire and brimstone fundamentalist Southern Baptist minister he explained his son WOULD NOT be buying ANY of the DEVILS raffle tickets because he doesn’t gamble.
It wasn’t like I could buy one.
Of course the lady with the roll of tickets got the picture almost - she tried to GIVE me one of The DEVILS 
RAFFLE tickets .
There’s another exchange and the line keeps backing up.
Anyway one of the IPMS guys takes a look at my box of models. I tell him I have four entries for juniors. Well he has a problem with that. I get a little speech that I shouldn’t be entering in juniors. These models need to go in with the adults. Basically it’s not fair to put these models in the juniors/kids categories.
I’m gullible enough to accept his words at face value. I’m arrogant enough to agree because I,think the model are good. I agree to his suggestion to put the four models in adult categories.
Later I would learn he was an extraordinary experienced contest modeler and judge In other words he knew exactly what he manipulated me into doing.
Finish up the paper work and take the models to the contest area. I’ve never seen one before. I look around for the correct adult categories.
My heart sinks.
My 1/48 Hornet is an embarrassment. My model has seams showing like every airplane model I’d ever seen. All of the models in the category are leagues better than mine. The ones in the juniors category are just as crappy as mine
My 1/25 Tiger is facing thirty or so well done model tanks. I notice the gun barrels don’t have seams on top like mine does.
There are no SciFi entries yet so I feel good about,the Klingon BattleCrusier.
There one other ship entry. I feel good about the Scharnhorst
To be continued…
7 Likes
Nice to read these stories…
1 Like
Looking forward to reading the rest.
REALLY curious about why that modeler/judge wanted you in the adult categories.
1 Like
I’ll bet that is a similar story in this community. Last week my friend called asking if I want any of his Avalon Hill games. He’s keeping Panzer Leader, Third Reich, and Tobruk. I still have my first, Richthofen’s War, and Tobruk, Air Force, Dauntless, and the first four Squad Leaders.. For several years my free time involved 90% gaming and 10% models - the games inspired the models.
Back to models, I had a couple with that remote: Panther and the Jagdtiger, IIRC. Good memories. Thanks for this thread.
2 Likes
Me too. More please.
1 Like
Why I Quit Model Building Forever At Age 15 - Part 2
Brief detour - the previously mentioned Tamiya 1/25 Tiger 1. Built about 45 years ago. Real Tiger faced Kursk this one survived as nearly as harrowing series of experiences.
Lone Survior of a junior high school National History Day Competition display at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. The Tiger was a key part of our school entry on the Battle of the Bulge presentation. We placed 2nd in Regionals and advanced to the State level. Where we placed 3rd and just missed going on to the national level History Day Competition in,Washington D.C…
The UNCC history professors that judged the competition really seemed interested in the model. I was quizzed in detail about the model tank. Did YOU actually build it? What gun was that 88 derived from?
Why the 88 anti-aircraft Flak 36/37 of course. They really liked that answer.
The model also survived being on display at the local County Fair the same year with the project. Next a year in a local county museam with the display. The big Tiger had always been well received by folks that saw it.
(The Tiger also served as the perfect weed stash hiding place in college years later.)
Back to,the show…
The next eight hours proceded at the speed of smell. I would make a pass thru the vendor area then back to the contest area. Tons and tons of aircraft models landed and hordes of armor models invaded the tables. Lots of cars showed up and few figures.
Finally registration closed. Judges began moving models around.
In short, I learned categories without entires were eliminated and their trophy packages floated to allow for something called categories splitting aka splits.
The only juniors aircraft and cars categories had entires. There wasn’t any juniors ship models, tanks or miscellaneous spaceship entries. Much later I would understand this fact freed THREE 
trophy packages to float for splits 
I noticed my D7 battlecrusier was moved and the Scharnhorst was moved.
I ended up asking about that.
Categories that didn’t have enough entries to justify them were combined with other categories. This allowed more trophy packages to be floated for splits
The four categories for ships: 1/700 and smaller, Ships bigger than 1/700, submarines & Sailing all became one category with like six entries.
The two categories Sci-fi & Real Space got tossed in with Miscellaneous. There were like four entries.
I felt some real anxiety. Didn’t know what it was called then but oh my it was hard to breath and got a stomach of butter flies.
I had dragged, nagged, badgered and pestered my mother and father into spending a very long unpleasant day at the show. This was so I could have my day and show off my stupid models. My mother was beside herself with boredom. Honestly she was a real trooper to put up with the mess.
There were practically no women or girls within eyesight of the event.They seemed magically repelled.
The venue was crowded with men. Fat men. Skinny men. Plus several really creepy looking men. The whole area stank like dirty socks in a high school gym locker plus Old Spice, Brut & Hi-Karate after shave. In other words the sausage fest reeked.
My dad sarcastically said, “So this is your idea of fun? Standing around all day for eight hours on a concrete floor? Are you having fun?.. Yes? You are?Then why don’t you try and look like your having fun.”
Truth - I was getting bored myself and it showed. Finally as 6pm rolled around…there was an unspoken expectation that built as time passed…for that expensive IPMS club awards dinner.
To be continued and concluded in Part 3
7 Likes
um-hum …
cliffhanger …
1 Like
Really good story so far!
On the 1/25 Tiger were the tracks link and length or rubber band?
Been following the story with interest, it’s good in general but in my State, IPMS region and have ran regionals and local shows in the past with one planned this May it’s of more interest to me. I get some of the why’s they did that but that’s not how we do things, good bad or otherwise, we just do things different then the Queen City.
@Panzer_modeler Ezra, the 1/25 scale Tamiya Tiger has plastic Individual link working tracks. They come with the kit
The kit was an incredibly detailed model with an interior and engine back in its day.
@Tank_1812 Ryan, indeed many things change over the years. This show was in 1979 or 1980 well over 40+ years ago. The host chapter was not the Charlotte chapter. The host chapter had done many shows and had a well organized system. Much later I learned they had a long running data file showing exactly which categories had how many entires that went back to their very first show. This help with planning the number of trophy packages and anticipating the number of splits.
On that day, I believe that guy at the registration desk did what he felt was best for the overall show - based solely on his own initiative. It was quickly obvious turn out was massive, far more than expected.
It’s also fair, in hindsight to say I was a spoiled arrogant brat with poor social skills. I was an only child and son of a pastor. You know what they about only child compounded with being a Southern Baptist preachers kid.
Sometimes those sorts need to learn life lessons the hard way. It’s very possible, I just pi$$Ed him off being myself and didn’t have a clue That’s one of my Asperger Super Powers
In any case, it should be obvious my fifteen year old self was way way way too serious about it.
Fifteen years later, I got to know him on a first name basis plus the other host chapter members. I also acquired great respect for this particular host club…but that all lay over a decade ahead in the future.
3 Likes
Great stuff. Back when we didn’t stress over seams and colors. Had a history teacher in high school who brought in Avalon Hill games once a year. D-Day, Stalingrad, Waterloo, Gettysburg, and Afrika Korps. Broke the class into 3 man teams and we played war games for two weeks switching games every couple days. Great way to learn history. Always signed up for his class.
2 Likes
@dwnrng44 Kevin That’s fantastic! A++ What a wonderful way to make history feel real and tangible!
If a teacher did that now, they’d probably be fired for teaching kids to wage wars of aggression.
Agreed, modeling is probably best fun when color accuracy and seams don’t matter. One of my long time friends says as basic construction became more important to him building was less fun to the point it was just work. He says who needs a hobby what feels like work.
2 Likes
It
This is a common problem in many endeavors. I play competitive racquetball and I envy those who are just beginning and playing for pure fun. As we become more proficient at something we have greater expectations. These endeavors are still fun but because one reaches a certain level of proficiency there is a tendency to become more critical. Don’t think I’m doing a very good job at expressing this but I think you understand what I’m getting at.
3 Likes
Absolutely understand. We expect that we can always do better, even when we reach the pinnacle of our own abilities, we still think we have it in us to do greater things. How many of us have kits we ‘won’t build until we get better’?
This is also where the "at least I know it is there’ factor also comes in. As you become more proficient you also become more critical of what is not there… even if it will be barely seen. Then you post pics which are twice the size of the actual kit and cringe at a flaw you can’t see at real size…
Maybe this in just in our ‘modelling genes’?
4 Likes
The same goes for the figures I paint. On pictures the faces look horrible, while in reality, they look not too bad…
3 Likes
Of isn’t that the truth… I am definitely in the same club…
1 Like
It’s definitely true as we gain knowledge and experience we become more critical. Before I pulled the saran wrap off these book shelves, I thought I’d share some BAD model builds. Now I realize they aren’t BAD models - they are TERRIBLE models. In my defense haven’t seem them twelve years
Why I Quit Model Building Forever At Age 15 - Part 3
The layout for the banquet awards dinner was quite interesting. Three quarters or so of the room was filled with round tables seating about six people. The podium had a row of long tables behind it seating around fifteen. The entrance had cluster of around 50 to 70 people spilling down the hall. Forty or fifty folks actually attended the banquet dinner.
There were various factions and cliches that settled in in an almost prearranged pattern. My family and a Black couple were the odd ducks out. So we ended up sitting together at the only remaining table. Finally fortune smiled. They were kind and friendly folks as one could hope to met in such an awkward environment. He was an architect and she was a nurse or lawyer - I can’t quite remember.
Ice cold plastic texture dinner rolls were joined with a small slice of paper thin roast beef. Green peas that could have been substituted for ball bearings and watery pencil eraser flavored carrots rounded out the meal.
This feast set my dad back $36 in 1979 or about $139 dollars here in 2021. He was both hungry and mad about the dinner. My impression was the majority were unhappy with the food.
The awards ceremony started about 7pm. The host club is sitting directly behind podium facing audience.
The master of ceremonies explains 1st, 2nd place, best stock and honorable mention if merited will be awarded.
Award after award goes to the jeering host club sitting behind the podium. The MC just turns around and hands the trophies back one after the other.
A chorus of boos started followed by a cascade of dinner rolls and forks flung by the audience at the MC and host club.
Trophy after trophy goes to members of the host club. In some cases all the trophies for one category (1st 2rd merit and stock all go to one person) Naturally when that happens its to a member of the host club. The host club chants SWEEP!!! SWEEP!!!
Yells of home cooked erupt from the audience and the side entrance.
This sordid scene is repeated category after category. Until the MC comes to the categories his models were entered in. “Merit goes to me, stock goes to me, 2nd goes to me and first goes to me!”
SWEEP! SWEEP! SWEEP! SWEEP!
Wave the broom waves!!!
My dad asks me why the people who hosted the event and judged the show are now winning nearly all of the trophies.
My mother thinks it’s the worst display of bad sportsmanship she’s ever seen in her life. They put this farce on, we paid for it with this horrible dinner. Now the members of the host club are awarding each other trophies after judging each others models.
That wasn’t quite a 100 percent accurate but it struck to the heart of the experience and the impression it fostered.
The architect won a 1st place and a 2nd place for this 1/72 scale armor entires. A fat kid in an army jacket who was in the hall won several for his figure painting.
Most of the splits went to the 1/48 aircraft. A few went to automotive and one to armor.
The architect asked which categories I’d entered. He was surprised that all of my entries were in the adult categories. Needless to say neither my Tiger or Hornet placed. Likewise the Scharnhorst didn’t place nor did the Klingon BattleCrusier.
SWEEP!!!
The host club was ecstatic with how successful 
the show had been. A fantastic turn out plus the host chapter racked up the lions share of the awards. Best of all every one knew the judging was fair because the host club had provided the majority of the judges.
What’s not to like about that?
As the awards ceremony ended I went to pick up and pack my models.
The Hornet was sitting on the table funny. Not only was the landing gear broken some of it was missing. It had been moved by,the judges due to the category splitting.
The Scharnhorst had a broken mast.
The Klingon BattleCrusier was intact.
The 1/25 Tiger was missing the loaders hatch.
It was a long long ride home but at least we stopped by Krispy Kreme and got fresh donuts.
Sunday I went to my model desk and made what repairs I could. After my first IPMS model show I really didn’t have any interest building.
In short order, the wooden ship I was scratch building got tossed in the trash. Likewise with the 1/25 model Corvette that had been on the bench.
Weeks after the show folks at the hobby shop were still talking about the IPMS show - in almost exclusively a negative context.
Within a few weeks the model desk had been cleaned out. I tossed the paints and glue in the trash. I had absolutely no intention of returning to the model hobby. Gradually the models were given away, destroyed or packed away in boxes until no trace of them remained in the house.
Basically, nine hours at one bad IPMS model contest destroyed nine years of love and interest in the model hobby.
In time I would realize it was MY fault for listening to an IPMS member on how to enter my models into the contest. That insight was in the future.
The only exception the Heller Scharnhorst had a spot on the top shelf of the bookcase and was allowed to remain visible.
The desk was Re-purposed for wargaming and Star Fleet Battles was my new favorite game. Avalon Hills Bismarck was also fun. Avalon Hill’s Rise and Decline of the Third Reich became a favorite of our group.
I settled into a deep dive into wargaming and AD&D.
I wouldn’t touch another model until I was a junior in college eight years later in 1986. A college friend insisted on stopping at Modelers Hobby Shop in Charlotte N.C. to pick up something for his little brother for Christmas.
I sulked around the hobby shop until I blundered face first into this:
The Lone Queen of The North
9 Likes