2023 IPMS National Convention – San Marcos, Texas
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- 1. Collection of 1/48 B-17s
My wife and I decided to go to the IPMS National Convention, which was being held in San Marcos, Texas. I have never had the chance to attend a national convention, but this one was being held just 90 minutes from our house. I don't build kits for contests anymore, so we planned to visit the vendors and take in all of the cool models. We planned to attend only the first day, so I am sure someone else will attend the Convention and post photos of the winners.
The Convention was being held at a convention center that decided to close and resurface half of the available parking spots, so finding a parking spot was a real adventure. Dozens of cars were circling the parking lot like vultures waiting for an available spot. The temperature was 107 in San Marcos, so the walk to the entrance was a real sunscreen experience. The vendor area consisted of two very large rooms, with Squadron Mail Order occupying an entire room for themselves. The contest area was huge, and was already full of hundreds of some immaculately built models. I can't imagine where contest models coming in for the rest of the week will go. A lot of the manufacturers had areas in the vendor rooms, several of them offering discounts up to 40%. The manufacturers included Eduard, Special Hobby, Tamiya, and ZM. I had been told to leave my wallet at home, which I didn't, but I managed to get out with only 4 really cool models and some books. We only planned to be at the convention for one day, but we spent 5 enjoyable hours doing the things we planned to do. I am sure someone will post a more comprehensive overview of the convention, but here are some photos in the meantime.
I had a bunch more photos, but my continuing problems getting photos uploaded continue. It took an hour to get these photos uploaded. Sorry.
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- 1. This drone was huge.
Fantastic B-17 collection!
Some nice pics George @gblair. I really like the yellow wings Wildcat.
Thanks, Lis Lis (@lis) and Robert (@beauslx). It was a lot of fun and I can scratch one thing off the bucket list. I am disappointed I couldn't get the photos to upload. I would upload 30 photos, and 2 would stick, and the rest would fail. Try again, same results. Very frustrating.
@gblair - Upload them 3-4 at a time, just hit "edit" after they come up, then go back and ad more. Don't do more than that at a time.
Hi Tom (@tcinla). That's what I usually do, but it wasn't working this time. I got to the point where I was uploading 2 at a time from the computer. I would get 4 uploaded to the article, only to lose 3 of them when I posted the article. It worked a little better this morning in the 2nd article.
That Greek Phantom looks cool. Thanks for sharing, George.
Thanks, John (@j-healy). These are just some of hundreds of very cool models. I took well over 200 photos of the models, and I only scratched the surface of those there.
What is this strange astronaut figure?
It was a very cool space figure, Bernard (@lis). There a evil spores coming toward the astronaut. He is trying to push away the spores. His helmet has come off and it floating in the background. It is really well done. He seems to be floating in space.
@lis - The cosmonaut figure is available here http://www.borninconcrete.com/#/dystopic-model-kit/
It's based on the art of Derek Stenning. Awesome stuff. Someday I'll have one of the series.
Oops, sorry, they are out of print.
Website is very cool, Brian (@brithebuilder). I only saw art prints there, but the art prints are amazing.
@gblair - Unfortunately George, the model kits were created by Industria Mechanica and they are no longer being produced. I should have spent the money years ago when I found that site.
I learned a long time ago that if I see something I like that I had better get it. In modeling if you wait, one of two things is true: either it is no longer available or it costs twice as much. Now I have a bunch of models from the 70s and 80s that I am building, but I can't get PE or canopy masks anymore. So, amend the previous idea, if you see something, you better get the model, and everything that goes with it.
You must have had an amazing time there, George @gblair
The pictures that did upload look amazing, hopefully the others will eventually upload as well.
Wonderful view of all those Fortresses.
It was fun, John (@johnb). Cindy and I still don't really like to be in crowds, so we wanted to go the first day to avoid the crowds. As it turns out, it was tremendously crowded, but still possible to social distance. I bet is was much worse today.
Thanks for sharing George, I don't know how one could judge the top three in any category based on what I've seen in your pics.
Thanks, Tom (@tom-bebout). When I got to the contest room I had thought I would only take photos of the "best" ones. The trouble is that they were all "the best ones". The level of construction was very high, and the use of very creative bases for the models was widespread.
5 hours at a NATS? When you live 90 minutes away? Hell I'd drive home every night and go back for the whole thing. I literally, and I'm not kidding, have had a nightmare several times where I get lost and cannot find the Nats location. When I finally get there it's the last day and everybody is packing up!. Yeah, I know I need help.
It's been a long time since they had a NATS on this side of the continent, hopefully soon.
Thanks for the pics, hope the rest load. I've had trouble loading pics here too.
Hi Bill (@billkoppos): Our plan was to get in, hit the vendors, cruise through the contest room, and then go home. We still don't like being in crowds, so we thought this was the best plan for us. San Antonio was supposed to host three years ago, but it was canceled due to covid. The last convention sight was already selected, so San Antonio got this year. I understand that they decided to hold the convention in San Marcos (about an hour north of San Antonio and 30 minutes south of Austin) because it was much less expensive there. I stopped building for contest 10 or 15 years ago, so just walking around drooling on the models was fine. The other reason to leave after one day was that it preserved my retirement savings. If I had stayed longer I might be in financial trouble right now.
Yeah, there is something wrong with the site. Also you can refresh your computer because you might be almost out of RAM. But I now load 4 shots at a time, hit "edit" and then add more till they're all up there.
Yeah, @tcinla and @gblair, that’s what I had to do with my post earlier today, even then some failed. @editor, are you aware of this continuing problem? My theory is that there too many You Tube links on this site.
I was trying the same thing, Tom (@tcinla) and George (@chinesegeorge). I usually try 4 photos, upload, then save the post, then edit to add more. Yesterday it got to the point I was trying to upload one photo at a time with negative results. The site is supposed to reduce the photos to its acceptable size, but previously I have had some success manually reducing the photos to 1600, but it didn't work this time.
Fine photos of well-done models. Thank you, George.
Thanks, Bob (@bails). I wish I could get the other photos to upload, because there are some exceptionally cool models in the other photos. I may try to upload the other photos later.
That's a lot of Fortresses on one table. Impressive. Ok,George @gblair, what are those four models that spoke to your wallet? Fess up.
Hi, Eric (@eb801). There were a lot of kits that spoke to me, but the ones I brought home were:
-Eduard 1/48 FM-2 (brand new, very cool)
-Eduard 1/48 F-104C (Zipper)
-Hasegawa 1/48 EA-18G
-Copperstate 1/35 Ehrhardt E-V/4 M.1917 (I have a weakness for early armored cars)
Looks like your visit was successful, George. I still get problems uploading pictures, it’s very frustrating @editor.
I hear you @chinesegeorge even though I can assure you that it has nothing to do with YT :). I’d be grateful if you could initiate a thread in Help & Support to describe your challenges in a bit more detail.
My understanding is that this is not a universal problem. I have been routinely uploading 50+ hi-res pictures in one go both on fixed and mobile connection, home or abroad. It may take a few minutes, but should not be taking hours for sure. Wonder what’s the experience of other users...
Thanks, George (@chinesegeorge). I agree that its frustrating. I called it quits after it took an hour to upload 10 pictures. I was hoping to upload about 30 photos, but I ran out of time and energy about the same time.
@gblair see my comment to @chinesegeorge above. I’m sorry you’re experiencing problems. Are you on fixed connection + PC, or on mobile?
Hi Martin (@editor). I think I answered all the above questions on the post that George started. We have a 1GB connection at the house, and my laptop is a gaming computer with lots of speed and a couple of GBs storage. My process is always the same: pictures on iPhone, download to computer, upload to iModeler, post article. Sometimes the photos go in perfectly the first time, but I almost always have several photos not upload from the computer with an error message in iModeler. Then I almost always have pictures that have been uploaded to iModeler fail to appear in the article when I post it. Thanks for working on this.
@gblair - Looks like a fun day George!
Thanks, Brian (@brithebuilder). This was a bucket list sort of thing. Always wanted to attend one, but never got the opportunity.
Awesome pics, George! Thanks for sharing! Hope you will be able to upload more!
Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten). It was fun.
That collection of Fortresses is really quite something!
Thanks, Tom (@tcinla). They were all in 1/48. One of my favorites wouldn't upload: A 1/48 B-17 on stilts and converted to a very detailed gas station. I hope to get it to upload later.
The Wildcat looks very nice, and that collection of Flying Fortresses is great….. reminds me of postwar photos of aircraft grave yards.
Thanks, Jay (@ssgt). It does look like an aircraft graveyard. There were a ton of Wildcats and Hellcats at the contest. Hopefully I can post more later.