Good day Gents. Please welcome our two new club members “Great Scott” Scott Perlick and Ronald Polimeni. Scott is returning to the hobby and Ronald is a current modeler and Volvo Club member . It is always great to have new members in the club and we look forward to seeing their builds! I brought a cake to celebrate our Nationals winners and out of all the winners, only Mark was on hand to cut the cake. Congrats again to Gabe, John, Mark, Marcin and Scott (that would be “Teacher Scott). The club sales went pretty well, with enough raised to purchase two more “Best of” awards for Ravencon – bring the current total of paid-for awards to 5. That is half of the awards so we are looking real good at this point in the planning process for Ravencon 2026. Frontline has committed to an award and that will be 6, so even better. As a reminder to all, the next series of meeting themes are:

October- the return of Tom Lacy’s airbrush guru and continued kit sales November – no theme as of yet and happy to take your ideas on that December – helicopter build month and the annual Christmas pot luck meal (yum yum) January – motorcycle build month

If anyone knows of a neat person to invite to be a speaker at a meeting, like a “famous” modeler, a war veteran, a hobby industry spokesman, a museum curator, a race driver, etc etc, let me know to slot that person into a meeting cycle. That would be a interesting meeting.

Good day Gents. On 13 September 2025, the Central PA IPMS club hosted its annual PennCon event, which was held for the second time at Messiah College. Attending as competitors were Todd Fit, Pat Fontana, Scott Saylor, Jeff and Belle Muir, Ross Pagan, and myself. Also there was Mark Tutton as a vendor, Tom Lacy and Tom Stephens. The show was well attended and the Central PA club member were their typical friendly selves. I am very proud to say that each Raven who competed placed! How great was that?! I acted as a mini-vendor myself and sold nearly $800 worth of kits. How great was that?! We were able to recover all the funds used to get the bronze/silver/gold awards for Ravencon 2026 – which was a goal I was elated to achieve. I handed out flyers for Ravencon and I was invited by ModelGeeks to do a podcast at the show about our club and Ravencon. C’mon, how great was that?! Okay, okay, I know you want the medal count so here goes Scott lead the way with 2 golds, 3 silvers and 2 bronzes (show off!) Then there was Belle Muir with 2 silvers and 1 bronze; Ross nabbed 2 silvers; Jeff earned 1 silver and 2 bronzes and our resident Star Wars expert Todd nailed a silver with his “burnt bread” spacecraft. I was able to squeak out 2 silvers and 1 bronze. The feathers in the Ravenhood are getting longer and longer!

On 06 September 2025, several members of our club attended the National Capitol Model Soldier Society’s annual show at the Hilton Hotel in Springfield Virginia. Attending on behalf of the Shenandoah Valley Modelers was Randy Corish, Scott Saylor, Jeff Muir, Belle Muir and myself as contestants. Bruce Oppenhagen attended the show to look and to shop! You go Bruce! Per the NCMSS staff, this was their largest show in their 64 years of putting on the show, with nearly 70 contestants entering over 300 models. As this is a figures-based show, some of the figures entered were beyond amazing and well beyond anything I know I can do but it was a pleasure to see such talent pooled together. I am happy to report every SVM member who competed won. Jeff won a bronze and a silver, Randy won a bronze, Belle scored a bronze and Scott scored a silver, a gold and a “Best of” in the vehicles category – way to go Scott. I was able to squeak out a silver, 3 bronzes, and a “Best of” in the maritime category. The show was well run and they did the awards really efficiently – which was appreciated after such a long day. We were all tired at the end, but walked away with another impressive showing for the Ravenhood.

Good day gents. I visited Frontline to drop off Ravencon flyers and to visit with Christian for a spell. Of course, I got a few must haves while there! Of note, Christian’s landlord is going to be installing nice wood flooring in the store – which will give the store a great look. Christian was lamenting how much he was going to have to move and I suggested he do a sale to help him move merchandise – which he thought was a great idea. He said he was going to think about how much of a sale he would do and would get back to me on it. I will let you all know but the new floors are supposed to go in before the end of September so it should be soon. Stay tuned and stop by and say hi to Christian. Remember to ask for the Shenandoah club discount when you shop there! Chris

This 75mm figure vignette came from Alexandros Models. The vignette kit came with the knight, the castle walls and floor, the furniture pieces, and the books on the shelves. I added small 28 or 32mm sized shields from a 3D printer from Etsy and the area rug from ETA Dioramas.
The castle walls were first to be assembled and glued together they were fixed to the floor base as one piece. Some jiggering had to be done to get the wall to fit snugly. The kit’s mold flashing filled in the window panes; they were hair then and nearly translucent so I thought why not just turn them into the stained glass. I dabbed various colors on the front side of the panes and once dry, gloss coated each pane.
The furniture, books, shields, and wall art above the window were hand painted. The figure’s cape was airbrushed including airbrushing lights and shadows. I cut out a template for the red cross on the cape and airbrushed that on as well.
The white on the figure was base coated with white then lights and shadows were applied by brush. The knight’s head was base coated with a custom AK lacquer mix and then highlights and tones were done with Abteilung flesh colors set of oil paints
Tom S and his brother in law created the custom wooden base, which came out nicely. I had to lightly sand down one side of the base to make it fit within the base. All in all, a fun project that went together without much fuss! Hope you enjoy.
Chris

This 75mm figure vignette came from Alexandros Models. The vignette kit came with the knight, the castle walls and floor, the furniture pieces, and the books on the shelves. I added small 28 or 32mm sized shields from a 3D printer from Etsy and the area rug from ETA Dioramas.
The castle walls were first to be assembled and glued together they were fixed to the floor base as one piece. Some jiggering had to be done to get the wall to fit snugly. The kit’s mold flashing filled in the window panes; they were hair then and nearly translucent so I thought why not just turn them into the stained glass. I dabbed various colors on the front side of the panes and once dry, gloss coated each pane.
The furniture, books, shields, and wall art above the window were hand painted. The figure’s cape was airbrushed including airbrushing lights and shadows. I cut out a template for the red cross on the cape and airbrushed that on as well.
The white on the figure was base coated with white then lights and shadows were applied by brush. The knight’s head was base coated with a custom AK lacquer mix and then highlights and tones were done with Abteilung flesh colors set of oil paints
Tom S and his brother in law created the custom wooden base, which came out nicely. I had to lightly sand down one side of the base to make it fit within the base. All in all, a fun project that went together without much fuss! Hope you enjoy.
Chris

Good day gents. Recently, the Shenandoah Valley Modelers participated in the IPMS/USA Nationals at Hampton, Virginia. This Nationals was one of the biggest in recent times, with well over 2,000 models entered into the contest. The competition was fierce and as is usual at Nationals, the quality of models across all the categories was superb. Undaunted, five members of the Ravenhood took to the challenge – and all five placed! Maybe that is a record – a club that has all of its members enter Nationals and all win!

The lead winner was Gabe, who in his very first Nationals took First Place in his category. Wow! The other members who placed at Nationals were our dio expert Scott Saylor with his famous Woody’s Garage dio, John with his excellent large tow truck, Marcin and Mark. This achievement says a lot about our young club and everyone should be very proud not only of these five members, but of the club as a whole for doing it right! Oooga Oooga