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
It’s been a while since I finished a model but I finally managed to wrap up this A5M trainer. It sat on my shelf for many months while I worked up the courage to modify a canopy for the rear section. And by then I forgot how I mixed the orange color so I wasn’t able to get a perfect match. Regardless I’m happy with it.
The kit started as a standard A5M by Sweet. It was turned into the 2 seat version using a conversion kit from RetroWings. The resin fuselage fit the wings pretty nicely but has noticeable lines down both sides. I regret not taking more time to sand them down but it’s fine.
Because the Sweet kit doesn’t have decals for the trainer version, and RetroWings didnt provide any, i had to make my own. I used some scans from a 1/72 kit and modified them for what i needed. They ended up being pretty thick and didn’t respond well to MicroSol, but it was good practice.
Its not something ill ever take to a show, but i didn’t try to make it a show piece. I think it looks great just sitting on my shelf. I’m trying to get back to building just for fun and not for perfection, but boy is that hard when you go to shows and see what people are capable of. Really makes me want to push myself, even though I’m perfectly content with results like this.
Due to a scheduling conflict, we are moving the September meeting from September 6th to September 20th. Location, time, and theme will all remain the same.
Please let others know, especially if they don’t check the website and aren’t on the Discord server.
Good day gents. The August meeting went very well with 24 folks in attendance. Every one say hi to our new member Coby! Coby brought a super sharp US WW2 destroyer to show. Welcome to the Ravenhood Coby.
We had several other guests attend and I am sure we made a good impression and they will join the chapter at the next meeting. It is so great to see the chapter continue to grow and to add to the talent pool – especially with Warhammer subjects!
It was great seeing John attend-he brought a stunning Quarles truck that he intends to take to Nats. Good luck John! Equally great was Ross being there and seeing his car carrier with luxury sports cars on it. That will be at the PennCon show in September. Good luck Ross!
Tom Lacy is our project manager for Ravencon 2026. He will be recruiting members to help with the show so raise your hand to help out when he reaches out to you. Club members can compete in Ravencon but members can only enter one subject per category. Lets be gracious hosts!
September is the auction month so bring that kit you never will get to and are willing to have it be sold to raise funds for the club. Randy’s never-used 3D printer will be raffled. The model theme for September are The Big Wars – so bring models of anything built from 1914-18 or 1939-45 civilian or military. Remember December is helicopter month and the best helo builder gets a cake! October is airbrush demo lessons and November Todd is giving an update fiber lighting demo.
Happy 249th birthday to all! The July meeting was very good. Mark’s insights into this year’s and follow on Nationals were interesting. Mark’s industry insights were very interesting as well! Get whatever kit(s) you want now!!
The vignette theme was a big hit. Bruce’s WW1 tank was superb. Pats early USN jets were fantastic. Pat is good at doing the uncommon aircraft subjects. Big and lil Bob’s cars were zoom-zoom good. Kj’s self made flat bed trailer was superb. Amazing skill.
Thanks once again to Scott for another good lecture on dio construction. The completed Sinclair dio is going to an eye catcher for sure.
Good days gents. The June meeting was packed and highlighted by the attendance of a new member! The Cold War theme of the models on display. The A-37 and USN cruiser were very sharp looking as were all the models. Jeff’s trucks are getting ever bigger in scope and complexity. Keep it going Jeff!
The July meeting theme is vignette, so bring your model on a grassy field display base to show off. The August meeting will be Foreigner 4 themed. Basically any model tied to any foreign country. Polish, South African, German, whatever. For Todd, a sci fi kit represents a model from the 5th Dimension so that would work too!
Nationals is coming up and best of luck to those entering. Randy is one. Our member at large John is also entering. Mark will be there as a vendor and possibly entering and Scott will enter too! The Ravenhood will be well represented by these superb builders.
Shenandoah Valley Modelers 