Since this thread seems to have run off in this particular direction, I can’t resist the temptation to get up (briefly, I promise) on a soapbox I’ve occupied before. I don’t believe in model competitions. I’ve taken part in quite a few over the past fifty years. I suppose it’s conceivable that somebody just might talk me into entering another one someday, but I doubt it - and I’ll never judge one again under any circumstances.
I concluded a long time ago that competitions do at least as much harm to the hobby as they do good for it. One big reason is that, as Goshawk and Millard have pointed out, each contest has different standards and different points of emphasis. At this point in my life I just can’t get interested in arbitrary standards established by others. The most egregious example of this kind of thing is a highly prestigious European ship modeling organization that, as I understand it, bans weathering from all models in the contests it sponsors. To my notion, that attitude stifles the creativity and individuality that, in my view, make the hobby worthwhile. I greatly value the opinions of other modelers, but I’m not about to change my approach to the hobby just to win a trophy in a contest. If I do win it, all it means is that, in the opinion of those particular judges, my model was better than the others that happened to be entered - i.e., that Donald McNarry, Harold Hahn, and quite a few other modelers who obviously are better than I am didn’t show up. At this point in my life I don’t feel like I have anything to prove to anybody, and I don’t need a judge to tell me one of my models is superior or inferior to somebody else’s. I’m perfectly capable of figuring that out for myself.
Another problem with those events is that they tend to bring out the worst in the competitors. I’ve made a fool of myself more than once at model competitions, and I’ve witnessed some displays of temper and childishness on the part of so-called adult modelers that were downright embarrassing. The last competition I judged was the one sponsored by the Mariners’ Museum in 1990. The best models in that competition were among the finest I’ve ever seen; the opportunity to study them up close was one I’ll always treasure. But I’ve never seen such a collection of babyish prima donnas in my life as I did when that contest was over. One loser pestered the museum with e-mails for months, claiming the judges were incompetent, or crooked, or blind, or whatever. He eventually reached the point of threatening to report the museum to the authorities. (The letters stopped coming when he was informed that there are no such authorities.)
I continue to be a booster of the concept of non-competitive model exhibitions. Our ship model club (which operates out of the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort; 2:00 on the last Saturday of each month, September through May; next meeting September 30, 2006, visitors and new members always welcome) holds such an event every May in conjunction with the Museum’s annual Wooden Boat Show. All the club members bring in their models, which get exhibited to the public in the Museum auditorium. I take digital pictures of all of them, with photo lights, and a studio-type background, and make CDs of the photos to pass out to all the members at the next meeting. We set up a booth where kids can make their own models of fishing trawlers, using “kits” prepared by the guys in the boat restoration shop. (Price: $3.00. Average time expended on each model: 15 minutes. Typical reaction: sheer ecstasy.) Everybody talks ship models, every modeler comes away with new ideas, everybody has a great time, and nobody gets mad at anybody else. That, to me, is what the hobby is all about.
I know lots of people get a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction from model contests, and it certainly isn’t for me to say those people shouldn’t take part in such events. But they’re not for me.
Well, that wasn’t as brief as I hoped. But I’ve ranted on the subject at greater length on other threads. Sorry about that.