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South Carolina AMPS IPMS show

If I went to Chattanooga I would have to stay the night. I hear the train museums are fantastic.
 
Not to get in a debate but I regard model building as an form of art.

I have never seen anyone admiring a good painting with a flashlight and a magnifier .
It is meant to be viewed with the naked eye.

If two models are so good that you have to examined with gadgets to enhance the sight, they both deserve awards .

Cheers, Christian
 
That pretty much sums up how I feel about it. If you can't see it with your eyes alone, then it's not a defect. Posting pictures online and looking at them on my large monitor has helped me correct many flaws that I didn't notice on the bench, but as Chris said, no one looks at a Picasso with a penlight. :hmmm

If penlights are the next thing in judging, I'm going to retire from competition.
 
I am glad y'all had a pretty good time and congrats on the awards you did get. The time with friends and fellow modelers is the high point of any show anyway.

Although I have judged some AMPS events (only 2), I feel the same way y'all do about the pen light. There was a judge on the other judging team that immediately went for the light on every model they judged. I can understand that some things might be hard to see (like something in the shadows in the interior) but since you are not really competing against anyone in AMPS, just having your modeling skills assessed based on your skill level, I don't think so much emphasis should be placed on things you cannot see with the naked eye.

IPMS judges sometimes do that, too. A couple of years ago I was at a local show with the M113 with the Recoilless Rifle on it that I eventually used for my "Breakfast In the Boonies" diorama. Those of you who have seen it know all of the details that I put into it and that it represents an actual vehicle. Out of the other armor models that it was competing against, it was actually one of the better models there...to the naked eye. When I talked to some of the judges afterwards I asked what could be done better on it. One of them took out a pen light at showed me a very faint seam line on the underside of the barrel of the recoilless rifle that can't even be seen from any angle a normal viewer would be able to view it from. All of the extra detailing I did on the interior and backdating I did to the exterior did not balance out or surpass the unseen-by-the-normal viewer seam line under the barrel. Then the following year, it was in the diorama that won first place, best diorama, and best Vietnam subject. Things that make you go hmmm. Now when I go to a show I really don't care if I win anything. I just go to show my work and hopefully someone will like it or be inspired to do something similar. Don't get me wrong, if I win something, I do appreciate it, but it is not my main reason for going anymore.

Cheers,
James
 
James, that is exactly the kind of happy nonsense that killed the hobby for me many years ago and the main reason I rarely will enter anything. It's one thing to have a light to see if there is a cockpit in a WWI plane or not. It is also another thing to have 3 or 4 builds that are all nice and use it to nit pick between them for the winner.

I tend to work all the seams down on everything. I notice that most folks don't work to that level of detail. It is just how I learned and every part needed to be trimmed and the seams and parting lines worked out. My biggest item is the painting. Still working on that but am coming along.
 
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