Episode 38: Dave Youngquist and Barry's trip to Texas for IPMS Nats
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Our odd little hobby/art form would be nowhere without trusted, reliable, and friendly retailers, and Dave Youngquist of the ace online hobby shop Last Cavalry tops your hosts’ lists of go-to sites on the Web. But Dave isn’t just a salesman—he’s a world-class figure painter (special interest: WWI) who’s also painted toy soldiers professionally for W. Britain. When it comes to techniques and the very best products for the jobs at hand, he’s a fount of information who’s always happy to share his knowledge, in person, or on his YouTube channel. We talked to him from his home in Royal Oak, Michigan, and Jim even got a chance to geek out a bit about another shared passion—garage-rock drumming!
Below: A small sample of Dave’s incredible work.
Rounding out this episode, Barry came back from this year’s IPMS Nationals in San Marcos, Texas, having once again shared good times with friends from across the country and around the world, as well as hauling home some awards—although as we cannot say enough: IT’S NOT ABOUT THAT! Below: Barry’s prize-winning scratch figure and French tank, and Joan Biediger’s first (prize-winning) Maschinen Krieger!
Above: Barry thought the IPMS Alamo Squadron did a great job of hosting the contest (although we prefer the word “show”), and he loved the regional flavor of the belt-buckle awards.
Jim loved this caricature of Small Subjects’ hosts, presented to Barry at the podcast panel, although like everyone who’s seen it and met Barry in person, he wonders why his co-host looks to be 12 years old.
Finally, what would IPMS be without a pointless, unnecessary, shoot-yourself-in-the-foot controversy? Coming on the heels of the national president’s recent editorial about “freeloaders,” the photo above went viral, portraying as it does a judge using his flashlight to examine the BOTTOM of a tank held high above his head in the never-ending search for flaws to narrow down dozens of entries to first, second, and third prizes. This prompted approximately a bazillion posts online discussing IMPS judging and whether it’s proper for a judge to ever man-handle models that way. In the end, even said IPMS president decided it was not, and announced, in the group’s typically bureaucratic and self-important language, that “the IPMS/USA Executive Board has reached an agreement that for all future IPMS/USA National Contests models will not be picked up or otherwise touched directly during the judging process for evaluation. The Board has directed the National Contest Committee to revise the rules and guidelines of the National Model Contest to ensure that this direction is clearly understood by both contestants and judges and strictly self-enforced by the judging corps.”
Duh! Common sense wins the day, better late than never. Or do all of you finish parts of pieces that will never normally be seen, and invite judges to inspect them?
The last time we talked about IPMS, Brad James, president of the MFCA, sent an email that can be paraphrased as, essentially, Why the hell do you care? Let IPMS be IPMS, and ignore them if you don’t like it.
Fair enough, except for the fact that your hosts believe the hobby is small enough, and boasts so many artists whose interests embrace both plastic modeling and the (to be a bit pompous) “art of connoisseur figures,” that the clubs that remain and try to forward this endeavor all have much more in common than divides them. We can all learn from one another, especially when there are better ways to do things—like, um, judging under the open system. We need to remember that the opportunity to gather with friends with shared passions is what this is all supposed to be about—and that will always be reason enough to care.