Sunday, April 3, 2016

Mosquitocon 2016 - 25 years strong

It’s April in New Jersey, and that can mean only one thing — snow. No, Mosquitocon!

For those of us in the Northeast Mosquitocon is kind of the informal kickoff to the new contest year, and it never fails to disappoint. The NJIPMS crew have this show down to a science. If there are any glitches in their planning and execution, they keep it well hidden from the attendees. If you live within 3-4 hours of Wayne, New Jersey, you really show put this contest on your calendar. This year’s show was the club’s 25th, so expectations were high and they didn't disappoint.

There’s always a balanced mix of aircraft, armor, ships, and automotive entries, as well as the other categories. Here are a few of my favorites from this weekend’s contest.

There was this F6F Hellcat. “Good looking 1/48th build there,” you say. Wrong. It’s the Eduard 1/72 F6F Hellcat with the Aires detail set, Eduard photoetch, and a myriad number of scratchbuilt parts. An incredible example of fine scale modeling, and my favorite entry in the contest.



Another entry that caught my attention was this Italeri 1/72 UH-34D Choctaw. The modeler cut open the clamshell nose to expose the scratchbuilt engine compartment, resin engine, and scratchbuilt exhaust. As you might imagine, the interior was fully detailed as well.


Another favorite of mine, maybe just because it fits into my favorite genre, was this Hobby Boss 1/48 FB-111A. The modeling and finish were absolutely perfect. This is the kind of 1/48 model that can entice me to abandon 1/72 scale, if only for a couple of months.


I also liked the gorgeous 1/48 OA-4M conversion. I believe the modeler combined the Hasegawa TA-4J with the Monogram OA-4M.


If your interests run back to the 1940s, this Tamiya P-47D was a stunner.


Walking over to the armor entries this Takom 1/35 Krupp 420mm cannon. What an impressive piece of artillery!


It’s always great to see new releases on the contest tables, so I was pleased to see this Takom 1/35 T-14 Armata.


One of my favorite naval entries was this Tamiya 1/350 IJN I-400 submarine.


When I was a teenager back in the 80s the Monte Carlo was the car I really wanted to own. In fact, I think the manager of the grocery store where I worked had one, and I was a little more than jealous. Needless to say, this AMT 1/25 1986 Monte Carlo with superdetailed engine was  favorite in the automotive categories.


The modeler of this 1/16 scale Dewback and Sandtrooper jumped on the Star Wars bandwagon and showed us this impressive model. It was quite large.



I’m a sucker for imaginative models and dioramas, so this scratchbuilt 1/35 UFO was a favorite among the attendees.


See you next year!

PS. Take a look back at my reports on the 2014 and 2015 shows here on Scale Model Soup.

3 comments:

  1. Honestly i was not all that impressed this year. A couple of neat standouts but that's it.

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  2. Hi Steve. Love your site. Would just point out a little typo in the first sentence: "... and it never fails to disappoint".

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  3. I hate that I missed it this year again. I attended in 2014 but missed the last two years for health reasons- going to try again next year.

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