Report from Wonderfest 2009

This weekend marks the annual Wonderfest tradition here in the Louisville and it marks the 20th anniversary of this show. Wonderfest is mainly geared towards genre modeling subjects such as horror, superhero, TV and movie characters, and lots of sci-fi spaceships.

The centerpiece of the show has always been its model contest. You will find little to no military or car subjects at Wonderfest as the bulk of their contest room is dominated with genre spaceships and fantasy figures. The operators of the show tout their model contest as one of the toughest competitions in the country. What makes Wonderfest so tough is that they utilize an "open" judging approach--- which can be good and not so good. The upside is no limitation to awards. The downside is the judging criteria is one of the highest criteria and modeling standards I have encountered. If one does rate a gold then you really have achieved something worth bragging about!

Below is a short photo essay of day one...

A beautiful real space concept model of a 1940's lunar lander designed by the British Interplanetary Society.

X-38 re-entry vehicle

Captain C-Board himself- MR. Scott Alexander of Atomic City. Note the beautiful 2001 Aries 1B.

Crow's Nest Models Drew Huffman.
I had a nice conversation with Drew inquiring about future Crow's Nest real spacecraft subjects.
He indicated to me that his plans are to create a line of 1/96 U.S. launch vehicles and 1/32 space craft subjects including a 1/32 Vostok!
http://www.crowsnestmodels.com

A "redneck" Jedi 'lightsabre'!

This 'studio-scale' Star Wars Millenium Falcon looks like it would be in 1/48 scale. Where does one store something this large?

A beautiful 1/144 New Ware Lockheed space shuttle concept.

My camera's batteries died on me and as a result I didn't get a photo of an outstanding 1/32 X-15-2. I will try to photograph it tomorrow.

All in all there were more real space and real space 'factual' pieces than has been in a number of years. We shall see how they "faired" at the awards tomorrow afternoon.