The Koningshof Conference Centre in Veldhoven will be the setting for the Scale Model Challenge on 18, 19 and 20 October. It is the largest annual model building fair in the world.
Jet fighters and bombers, tanks and trucks, elves, trolls and wizards, soldiers, Formula 1 racing cars, American sleds and German classics. All of this on a small scale. The model building fair attracts more than two hundred exhibitors from more than twenty countries every year.
Visitors also come from China, Japan, Australia and the United States. Last year, more than five thousand visitors were welcomed. Model building once started as ‘building airplanes for boys’. It has grown into an art form, requiring skill, attention, patience, concentration and knowledge.
Weathering
Building the model is just the beginning. Painting (with airbrush) and especially weathering, make it a hobby like few others. Weathering is making the model lifelike, applying oil stains, smoke trails, damage and faded paint.
The dioramas are a story in themselves. Lifelike landscapes, battlefields with tanks, airfields with wrecks. Or superheroes on planets. Recreated in detail down to the millimetre, or better down to every blade of grass. And historically completely correct.
Often a considerable study precedes it. Which tanks stood in which landscape, what colour were the uniforms, what kind of sand was on the mudguards? Also well represented is the so-called tabletop wargaming, again with self-painted figures.
Workshops
More than two thousand models can be seen on seven thousand square meters of exhibition space. The experienced hobbyist can indulge him or herself with the almost two hundred specialised manufacturers and traders. There are workshops to introduce new products and/or techniques.
There is also much to enjoy for beginners, especially youngsters. The organising SMF wants to bring the hobby back where it started. For example, there is a special youth stand, where children can build (and paint) a first model under supervision.
Maps
Access during the weekend, from 10:00 to 17:00. Tickets are available here. The organisation is in the hands of the Eindhoven association Scale Model Factory.
Source: Studio040
Translated by Yawar Abbas
