Omacon IPMS 2015

[willygoat]

Today was the Omacon modeling convention, hosted by the Fort Crook IPMS club of Omaha, NE. The event was held at one of my favorite places on the whole earth, the Strategic Air and Space Museum.

I took part as both a contestant and a "vendor", although I wasn't selling anything. I set up a table to share the goodness of the paper modeling world. Thanks to the generosity of Dave Winfield and Ryan Short, I was able to offer a few freebies to hand out to all of the people that stopped by. By far the one that got the most interest was Dave's amphibious purple hippo bus. I printed extra copies of that one, and they all went well before the day was over. The L-5 Sentinel from Ryan's Lbirds site was also well received. One gentleman said that his father flew in one during WWII, and would build it in his honor.

Anyway, the good stuff. I entered my three models into the miscellaneous category. The event organizer said I could put them into what ever category I wanted to, but when I registered, there were only two other models in that category, compared to the 11 in the prop category, and 12 in the jet category. The misc. category ended up being split into 2 sub groups; paper, and not paper. There was one other modeler that entered a paper model of the Empire State Building, at the time of the B-25 crashing into it. It was incredible, and he took first in the paper category.

At the end of the day, my Thai Paperwork P-51D "Gunfighter" came in 3rd, and the Oddball Productions F-105 came in 2nd. My B-25 didn't quite compare to the Empire State display.

The pictures:
The first few are of my table. I had a hard time getting a shot from the front of the hand outs, as there was rarely a time where no one was at my table.

My models on display for competition

General shots of models. Some of these folks have crazy skills on scratched details. I wasn't able to get a clear picture of one, but one gal scratched the entire interior of a 1:72 scale MH-47 Chinook. It was amazing, but too small to get a shot of.

Another model that stood out was the "Huge Sub" as noted by one of the judges. It was a customized kit of the SeaView from "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea". The had a fully detailed bridge, a smaller sub on the underside, and it was fully lit.

There was also a great "What-If" model. A PanAm XB-70 Valkyrie. So cool.

[whulsey]

Looks like a good show and fun was had by all. Would like to get up close and personal checking out the SeaView.

[murphyaa]

I see my Spambot is still hanging around. Any chance you could get some closeups of him? I wanna put hum up on my site, but I need a good pic.

[Vermin_King]

I really wish I could have gotten away today to be there. Sounds like it was a great time. And congrats

[willygoat]

Originally Posted by murphyaa

I see my Spambot is still hanging around. Any chance you could get some closeups of him? I wanna put hum up on my site, but I need a good pic.

I'll get some tomorrow for ya Murph. That Spambot garnered a lot of attention,For one gentleman, it brought back memories of eating it as a kid growing up in Hawaii shortly after WWII. For others, memories of old tin toys. Everyone loved it though when I pointed out the key on the back. Someone actually offered to buy it, and I said sure, but they never came back at the end of the show.

[willygoat]

Originally Posted by whulsey

Looks like a good show and fun was had by all. Would like to get up close and personal checking out the SeaView.

I can assure you it was amazing. I wish I had a better setup for really close macro photos. There was someone there with a tripod and fancy camera. I think he said he was taking photos for the website. I'll keep checking that and let you know if there are any up there. He had his camera focused through the "windshield" and to the back of the bridge.

[murphyaa]

Which is funny, cause I designed it during the big Spambot invasion back in 'ought twelve' so I could say "there's a spambot loose somewhere in the downloads section".

[willygoat]

I told a few folks about that, and they got a good laugh. The guy at the table next to me had a bunch of the Metal Earth models, and he used it to pretend that it was coming over Godzilla style to smash his models. The Star Wars ships, good and bad, banded together to take him down.

[modelperry]

Glad to see your experience through your pictures and commentary. I just hope I have an equally successful and rewarding experience in Des Moines in two weeks. Seeing your success just gives me a boost of excitement and encouragement for my own upcoming experience.

I know I will have a few differences from you as I intend to do some seminars (we'll see how that turns out) and I don't have any freebies arranged. but hopefully I'll still generate some interest.

greg

[JohnO]

Nice to see the inroads being made and thanks for the photos. Serves as encouragement as I aiso will do a table in the Vendor area for IPMS Best of the West in Las Vegas as well as sponsoring a Paper Category. Look forward to seeing how it goes for you also Greg