Squadron’s 3D Print Push

Something big is happening in scale modeling, and you can feel it in the way builders talk about 3D printing, new subjects, and the shows that are turning into true hobby meetups. We sit down with Brandon Lowe from Squadron to get a grounded look at what it takes to turn a cool idea into a real 3D printed model kit you can buy, build, paint, and display with pride. 

We talk through two attention-grabbing releases: the 1/48 M2 Cletrac tractor built for airfield scenes, and the 1/35 M5 high-speed tractor that gives armor builders a fresh support vehicle that isn’t another “usual suspect.” Brandon shares how Squadron uses early feedback to improve everything from production choices to what future releases should look like, and why IPMS Nationals is the moment where the wider community gets to judge the results. If you care about 3D printed aftermarket accessories, naval ordnance details, or how digital design can finally fill long-ignored gaps, you’ll get plenty to chew on here. 

Then we pivot to what might be the biggest news for model show travelers: Eagle Quest is coming back in Chattanooga as a joint event with the Chattanooga Scale Modelers’ ModelCon, and the demand is already intense with vendor tables selling out far in advance. We cover why Chattanooga is such a strong location, how the gold, silver, bronze judging system will be used, and why expanded contest categories like real space vehicles, trains, wargaming, and Gunpla could pull in builders who don’t always feel at home at traditional shows. 

ModelCon/EagleQuest

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Transcript

Release Timing And Quick Update

Mike 0:10

It's gonna be a busy month, Kentucky Dave. Yes, it is, in many ways. Well, folks, you may have been expecting episode 163 by now. We got some issues, man.

Kentucky Dave 0:24

A day or two, it's not much.

Mike 0:26

Not much. Well, no, we actually have elected to slide it out almost a week from when it most likely would have dropped in prior months, primarily because seems like all the other shows have kind of uh drifted into the same week and just trying to spread things out. Help the listenership of all the shows out a little bit by putting a little putting the gap back in place, which I think will benefit everybody.

Kentucky Dave 0:49

Yep.

Mike 0:50

But not to leave you want for something here in this second week of May. We had an interesting chat with Brandon Lowe, Squadron. An extremely interesting chat. He's been on several times before. We've been trying to get him back on here for a while now, but just hasn't worked out. He's been busy and we've been busy and we've been to shows. We saw him at Amps, which was nice. We did get a chance to talk to him there, but uh Yeah, we had a nice time at Amps. But we did not get to do the segment at Amps, and I didn't really want to do it at Amps anyway. So it's all good. Yep. Well, let's not waste any more of time, Dave. Let's just get right into our conversation with Brandon. All right.

Brandon Lowe Joins The Show

Mike 1:33

Well, Dave, I think I said it before and he actually denied it, but I think we've got one of the busiest men in the skill model sphere on the line with us again. One of our sponsors, Brandon Lowe from Squadron. Brandon, how you doing, man? I'm good, buddy.

Brandon Lowe 1:48

How are you guys?

Mike 1:49

We've been busy too, so you're not the only one. It's it's been a crazy couple weeks since AMPS or three weeks. I don't even know how long it's been at this point. It was good seeing you up there.

Brandon Lowe 1:58

Three weeks, I guess. Maybe four weeks. Three weeks. Three weeks. It seems I don't know. Part of me seems like it was an eternity ago, and the other part of me feels like I just got back yesterday.

Kentucky Dave 2:09

So now less than three weeks to Wonderfest.

Brandon Lowe 2:13

That is true. And then I'm kind of crazy, and I've thrown another one in the mix. Actually, next week I'm going down to Atlanta to the uh Wonder Festival, which is part of MomoCon, which is gonna be totally different than any shows I've ever done, but we'll see how that goes too.

Mike 2:30

I'm gonna have to have a little more info. What what show is that?

Brandon Lowe 2:34

The so Wonderfest that we know in Mouvil, uh and you know, i if I understand correctly, they kind of looked at Wonder Festival as a as a good idea back in the day. Wonder Festival is a figure show in Japan.

Mike 2:50

Yes.

Brandon Lowe 2:51

And they are coming to the United States for the first time this year to do their show, and they are doing it alongside MomoCon, which is, I don't know, kind of like a Comic Con, I guess you could say. It's in Atlanta. Makes sense. Um one of those big things. But the Wonder Festival is taking place right in the middle of it, and uh, we've got a vendor booth or table or whatever, and we're gonna go down and see what it's all about. Take some figures and some of our paint and tools and things like that and see what's going on down there.

Kentucky Dave 3:24

I look forward to talking to you at Wonderfest about your experience there, man.

Brandon Lowe 3:29

Well, we will see. It'll be we're going down there next week, and we will get back and two days later we turn around and head to Louisville. So it's gonna be a busy couple of weeks for sure, but we're looking forward to it.

M2 Cletrac And M5 Tractor

Mike 3:41

Well, when we first try to get you back here, man, we've been busy and you've been busy and it's all good. But at that time, some of this 3D stuff was still to be released. Some of it is released now. Yeah. Primarily the ones that I was curious about was the the Clee Track, the little 48 scale kit you guys are doing, and then the other one is it an M5 high-speed tractor or M4? I can't remember.

Brandon Lowe 4:07

M5 high-speed tractor.

Mike 4:08

Okay, and that one's in 35th scale.

Brandon Lowe 4:11

Yeah, and and you know, people ask, well, what about this scale or what about that scale? And obviously the goal would be to do them in multiple scales. That's one of the advantages of 3D design and 3D printing. But like you said, the M2 Klee track, which uh, if you guys are not familiar with, was the little tractor that they used on the airstrips to pull the you know, bombers and fighters and whatnot around, kind of trying them around the airfields. And we're doing that in 48th scale because of that reason. You know, you build a you know 48 scale B-17 or P47 or whatever you're building, you can have a little clee track to pull it around.

Kentucky Dave 4:47

And I don't think that's ever been done before, has it?

Brandon Lowe 4:51

Not yes and no. It was it was actually included in a very old monogram kit way back in the day. I forget if it was a B-29 or it was the B-24. B-24, okay. Yeah, it was included in that, and it was fine for the time. But to my knowledge, like you, Dave, I don't recall it ever being released as a standalone kit. So we've we've done that and we kind of introduced it. We had them at Amps and we had them a few weeks before that on the website and whatnot. And we kind of introduced it at a relatively low price for a you know 3D kit, but we were kind of testing the waters with it, and you know, we we got some very good feedback from it, mostly good, a few little, hey, if you had done this or if you had done that. Uh so we took that feedback and we've gone back to the drawing board, not necessarily uh from the design standpoint, but more from the production standpoint to make that kit better, but also take these these comments from customers and potentially make all of our future kits better, starting with the M5 high-speed tracker, which of course will be the next release after this. And so we're just always into something. Of course, the 3D part of our business is certainly just a small, for lack of a better way to put it, a fun portion of our business. We a lot of the guys that work at Squadron, we are modelers and and we like being creative. So we've got a good team of designers and guys that work on the machines and all that. And it's fun to produce your own concepts and to see things, you know. You're sitting around, hey, we should do an M2 Klee track. And then, you know, a little while later, poof, there it is. And customers are buying them and building them and painting them, and it's really, really neat to see basically ideas that started from within the shop come to life through customers. So that's kind of just a fun thing that we're doing, and and it will certainly grow in time. Uh right now, we've got a probably got more things announced and things that we've talked about than are actually available. But that will that'll change as time goes here in the next few weeks and months.

Mike 7:09

Well, I was oogling the M5 at Amps. Uh, what's the perspective timeline for that one?

Brandon Lowe 7:16

That one was a prototype that was built up there that we had on display. And it is, for the most part, kind of ready to go. Uh, there's a few tweaks left to be made on it, uh, and then it's just a matter of getting it set up uh to go into production. There were uh there were several things that we announced back in January in our squadron digital catalog, those two kits included, the M2, the M5. There was a couple of submarines and various other things. And uh since we did that, we've had prototypes out, we've let people in the industry and friends have these or be able to get a hold of one, so to speak, test build them, and just kind of before we throw them out there to everybody, we want to just make sure that what we have to offer from a production uh standpoint is is good. But to answer your specific question on that one, we are hoping, fingers crossed, to have our full official release of that kit and the official release of the M2 at the IPMS Nationals this year. There have been a lot of people that have got their hands on the M2. Like I said, that was kind of the test of the waters prototype version, real cheap introduction price kind of thing. And overall, it's it's been it's been good. What it's shown us mostly is that there is a market for these things and people like the ideas that that our team has come up with. So uh we're gonna build on that and see what we can do with it in the future with these two releases and several others that we've got planned.

Kentucky Dave 8:54

Well, it did seem up at Amps that the reaction to both those kits was very, very positive. I talked to a number of people who mentioned it, I didn't bring it up, but mentioned it to me. Have you seen that? So I can't I would imagine that you're gonna have some built-up demand for both of those.

Brandon Lowe 9:13

Yeah, and and it was really neat to see the interest in it. I mean, there they're certainly interesting vehicles, but we didn't really know what to expect. I mean, are we gonna sell a a couple, a couple dozen, a couple hundred? You you just don't know what to expect. So being able to have those prototypes built up and on displayed amps really kind of showed us that people are interested in this kind of I I hate to call it an odd subject, but it's not a Sherman, it's not a tiger. It's it's just these little cool vehicles that are excellent additions to any collection. If you're an armor modeler, you've built all the home runs, and these will be interesting uh subjects that fill little holes in your shelf that perhaps you've never even thought about adding to your collection.

Kentucky Dave 10:00

Absolutely. And and are visually in many ways more interesting.

Mike 10:05

Sure.

Scaling Up Squadron 3D Printing

Mike 10:06

I've also noticed that a lot of 3D, I think most of it's like naval ordnance and stuff you guys have been selling to Squadron bears. Now, is that from your shop or have you in a inherited that from one of your acquisitions or a little bit of both.

Brandon Lowe 10:21

A little bit of both. It actually starts many, many, many years ago, about 20 years ago, actually, when we first started as free time hobbies, you know, of course, our main thing we did, or heck back then, all we did was ship models. And a few years after that, we got we acquired Yankee Model Works and Blue Water Navy and and several of those other brands, and we rolled all that into Blue Ridge Models, which was at the time our shop was located in Blue Ridge, Georgia, so that's why we called it that. And that time, it was about 2012 or 13, somewhere right in there. 3D printing was really, really new at that time. But we were able to come up with a full range of 700-scale accessories. We sold those and printed and sold those for years. And it was it was really good. And so when we got back into this now with Squadron and we decided we're going to do 3D printing, we decided, hey, 3D printers have come a long way since back then. There's still a customer base that we have for these items. Why don't we do it again? Except this time we'll do it in all scales. And we decided to start with 350th scale. And just like the uh the M2, we threw some things out there, some 20 millimeter guns, some 40 quads, some just various things. Got a lot of good feedback, but again, got some had some not issues, but little things that we decided through talking to some of our customers, hey, if you do this, this, or this, it'd be awesome. So go back to the drawing board, and again, uh, we're looking forward to nationals this year to hopefully have our official release of this is what everything's gonna look like into the future. And we've literally got dozens of designs. I mean, heck, just with the 20 millimeter guns, there were so many versions of that thing. I think we've got somewhere between 10 and 20 different versions of that in 350th scale with different gun shields and different sights and all this stuff. So it's it's gonna be really neat after we acquired iron shipwrights. Of course, that came with all sorts of other subject matters from full ship kits all the way on down to uh submarines and and everything else. And of course, all the guns and weapons and equipment and whatnot on those ships can certainly be stripped out to sell as aftermarket accessories. So, you know, we've got big plans, we've announced some things in some of our catalogs and kind of just threw some Easter eggs out, if you will, just to kind of test the waters, see if this is something customers are really gonna be interested in before we really put forth the the time and effort and and money to make this happen. But from what we've seen so far, I I think that people are really interested in what we have planned and uh we're gonna make a go with it uh one way or the other. And and like I said, hopefully at Nationals this year in Fort Wayne is where we'll really be able to show people what we're capable of, and it'll be a it'll be a make or break show for us. People will either like it or they won't, but at that point they will at least seen it.

Mike 13:37

Can't wait to see it. Well, at least with 3D print, you've uh you've got some capital investment there, but it's not quite like a piece of injection mold and tooling.

Brandon Lowe 13:46

No, it it's not, you know, and and a lot of people have this time, a lot it's easy. A lot of people have one or two, or maybe even three printers at at your house. But well, you know, you've seen how we go to the shows and kind of go big or go home. So you can probably imagine what our 3D print facility looks like. It's uh it's uh it's a go big or go home situation there too. So at this point, we've got to make it work. But we're we're excited. It's just like anything else, it it takes longer and cost more. Uh but at the end of the day, we're gonna make it work and it's it's gonna be really neat.

Mike 14:22

We mentioned a lot of shows. You mentioned nationals more than once here talking about the 3D stuff.

ModelCon And Eagle Quest Origins

Mike 14:27

Let's pivot over to this other show that's coming up about a year from now. Okay. It's uh turning into a another big hairy deal, just like your your 3D print action there.

Brandon Lowe 14:38

Uh okay. Well, I guess you're talking about the Chattanooga ModelCon Eagle Quest. I am. All right.

Mike 14:46

Looking forward to it.

Brandon Lowe 14:47

We we are too, you know. So the Chattanooga Scale Modelers is a model club here in the Chattanooga area. And they got started actually back in 1988. I be I believe Lynn Petty is the guy that started the club.

Kentucky Dave 15:05

It is. I I knew Lynn at the time.

Brandon Lowe 15:08

You know Lynn, okay. He's he's a great guy. He's still a part of the club. And I guess I I don't know. I mean, I was three at the time, so yeah, rub it in. I was definitely not a part of the club at that time, but they, you know, they started at some point down the road after that, they started having their swap meet that turned into a model show. And they had that for for many years. And in 2013, I believe, is the year, the show moved from, I believe they were in a church at the time, but they decided to move their show to the downtown convention center in Chattanooga.

Kentucky Dave 15:50

Which is beautiful.

Brandon Lowe 15:52

It is. And when they made that move, they changed the name, or well, I don't even know if the show had a name, to be honest with you. It might have. But in in 2013, the name of the show became ModelCon. And they ran that show every year after that, with the exception of one year that it got snowed out, and I forget what year that was. And then in 2019, the club had the opportunity to host the IPMS National Convention in Chattanooga, and that was a nice show.

Kentucky Dave 16:25

And put on one of the best nationals and I've been to a lot of nationals.

Brandon Lowe 16:30

Okay.

Kentucky Dave 16:31

It's about 30, and Chattanooga gotta be in my top three. It was a fantastic show.

Brandon Lowe 16:40

Well, yeah, I I gotta agree with you. I'm a little partial, but you know, right here in the backyard. So that that's a little, you know, the the 30-second history of the of the Chattanooga Model Con. Now, the Eagle Quest, that was Squadron's show out in Texas. Yeah. And that show actually originated in St. Louis. It was VLS, Verlinden. It was VLS's show called MasterCon.

Kentucky Dave 17:10

Yep. Which Mike and I have both attended back in the day.

Brandon Lowe 17:14

Okay. Okay. Well, that show started, I believe, in 1991.

Kentucky Dave 17:18

Mm-hmm.

Brandon Lowe 17:20

And in 2000 and give or take a year here, uh, Dave, I should, I should have this in front of me, but I don't. When Squadron purchased VLS somewhere in the 2005 ballpark, the the show, MasterCon, came along with it, was a package deal. They bought the company, they got the show. Uh well, instead of running the show in St. Louis, they decided to run the show in the Dallas area where Squadron was located. And then they changed the name from MasterCon to Eagle Quest. So the show continued under the name Eagle Quest until 2019 was the very last Eagle Quest. They did not know at the time that was the last Eagle Quest, but it got canceled in 2020 for other reasons. And then by the time it came around in 2021, the business had closed down and been sold to some guys over here in Georgia. Um and the the interesting thing was in 2022, when we were in Texas for the IPMS National, Russ, my dad, was there representing the MMD side of the business. And the guys from Tamiya asked him, said, Hey, when are y'all gonna bring Eagle Quest back? If we kind of looked at him crazy, like, what are you talking about? It's it's it's like we had not even thought of that.

Kentucky Dave 18:52

Slow down, we just bought squad squad. Pretty much.

Brandon Lowe 18:56

Something like that. But they said, well, when you do, not if, but when you do, we'll be there to support it. And we'll be in attendance, and it's gonna be great. We're like, it's kind of interesting. You know, why would Tamiya want to come support a local show? Not that they wouldn't want to, but I mean they got bigger fish to fry. And they got back to them that we were talking that way, and they said they came up to us and said, No, no, no, no. Eagle Quest was not just a local show. It was a big deal. So we said, okay. Well, we kind of always had that in the back of our mind, but we had a lot of other things to do. Now a lot of like 3D printing. Yeah. Yeah. Uh well, anyway, this past year at the Chattanooga Model Con, we we got, I mean, we've always been a part of that club just because it's right here.

Kentucky Dave 19:47

Right.

Brandon Lowe 19:47

Yeah. But we we really decided, let's see if we can do a little marketing and and push some people towards the show and and see what happens. And we started doing that a month or so before the show, uh, just helping them with marketing a little bit. And the show's always been good and it it always grows a little bit each year, but this year in particular, it's like there was

Why The Joint Show Works

Brandon Lowe 20:10

no space. It was slam-packed with with people in there. The general admission was off the charts. I mean, they had they had something like over 600, if I remember correctly, general admission coming. They ran out of tickets at the at the general admission table.

Kentucky Dave 20:25

That's the problem you want to have.

Brandon Lowe 20:27

It is. And so it was really, really good. Lots of people. So we said, look, let's let's talk to them. So we talked to the club president about potentially doing a joint show together. Because our problem with Eagle Quest was, you know, we we can we know the vendors, you know, because dad sells to a lot of the vendors as as MMD. He we know that side of it. We know the exhibitor side. I mean, Tamiya already said they'll be there.

Kentucky Dave 20:54

Right.

Brandon Lowe 20:54

But we we don't have the time or the resources to run a model contest, you know.

Kentucky Dave 21:01

But you've got a club with long experience.

Brandon Lowe 21:04

Exactly. So we and you know, and the club meets at our shop. So it's kind of like uh the club's kind of like a big, a big family, probably like a lot of clubs are.

Kentucky Dave 21:13

Yeah, exactly.

Brandon Lowe 21:15

Anyway, so it worked out to where we're gonna do this joint show. We're bringing the name Eagle. As soon as we attached the name Eagle Quest to it, all of a sudden people start coming out of the woodworks all around the country just excited that Eagle Quest is back, and it's really looking like it's gonna be a pretty, a pretty cool event. We're a year out or 11 months out now, and they have already sold out of all 250 vendor tables.

Kentucky Dave 21:42

Nice. Wow.

Brandon Lowe 21:43

So it's and and it's gonna be at the convention center, but the the the Model Con show prior to this coming year has always been in the ballrooms.

Kentucky Dave 21:55

Right.

Brandon Lowe 21:56

It's not we were already out of space there. So we're gonna move. Move it down the hall to the exhibit halls where the 2019 Nationals were held.

Kentucky Dave 22:05

And that's the beauty of that convention center is that you can expand out as because they've got tons of space. So you can expand out as you need to.

Brandon Lowe 22:15

Oh yeah, they've got tons of space. There are tons of hotels in the area. In fact, three of the hotels have already given us uh block room rates uh for the show. So if you go over to www.model-conc-o-n dot com. Model-con dot com, you can see all the information for the show. There's even a countdown clock on the front page. It says 324 days and 15 hours left for the show. You'll scroll down, you'll see the exhibitors showcase. Of course, Plastic Model Mojo is listed there because I believe you guys are the official podcast of the show. Wow.

Mike 22:56

Appreciate you reminding me of that.

Brandon Lowe 22:58

Oh, yeah.

Kentucky Dave 22:58

Yeah. Proud to be so.

Brandon Lowe 23:00

There, there you go. But it it's going to be really neat. I know that the club's got a they've got the exhibitors listed on the front page now, like Tamiya and Atlantis and Airfix, the and and you guys. These are the the exhibitors are the companies or brands that are going to be there just representing their brand, not necessarily selling things. And then there'll be a complete vendors list listed at some point. I know they're trying to work all that out now. But it's it's going to be really neat. If you go into the hotel sections, if you've never been to the downtown Chattanooga area, it's really, really cool when we were back in Ellijay looking for somewhere to move to that would be better for business. I mean, there's lots of big towns around here, you know, Atlanta, one of the biggest. But Chattanooga is just such a great town. Every time we would take the kids and the, you know, or the family or go do something on the weekends, a lot of choices around. We always ended up in Chattanooga just because it's just a really neat place. So it's the if you went to the 19 Nationals, you know what I'm talking about.

Kentucky Dave 24:06

I know exactly what you're talking about.

Brandon Lowe 24:08

Lots of cool hotels.

Kentucky Dave 24:09

And it is one of the most walkable downtowns you'll find.

Brandon Lowe 24:13

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Kentucky Dave 24:15

There's a car museum, there's restaurants out the wazoo. There are what, like five hotels within a block or two blocks of the convention center.

Brandon Lowe 24:26

Yeah, it's amazing. It it really is. It's neat. And I mean there you've got the the Chattanooga Choo-Choo down there, you've got the the Wrecker Museum, the Lookout Mountain, the Chickamauga Battlefield.

Mike 24:38

Yep, yep. Rock City, go see Rock City. Go see Rock City. That's right.

Brandon Lowe 24:45

Yeah, we've got so we've got a lot of people that that I respect in the industry for for what they build that are going to be head judges, you know, in in different places. Well, our our ship head judge out in California, I was talking to him today, and he says, Hey, how far is Smokey Mountain National Park from there? I said, It's like two hours or something. He says, I think I'm gonna come a couple days early so I can go see that. I mean, there's just if you've never been to this part of the country, it's just got a lot of really, really cool stuff to see, uh, especially from a scenic point of view.

Kentucky Dave 25:28

The Smoky Mountain National Park, my wife and I and our family, we've vacationed there a half dozen times, and we keep going back. It's a little slice of heaven.

Brandon Lowe 25:40

Oh, yeah. It's it's really neat. I mean, so it's gonna be a really, really nice place. It's gonna be the week or the weekend after Easter next year, April 2, 3, and 4. So, I mean, the weather's gonna be perfect. Uh, it's just gonna be a nice place. Now, if I may, I'll tell you the way this show works is it is a gold, silver, bronze style of judging.

Kentucky Dave 26:05

Gotcha.

Judging Style And Expanded Categories

Brandon Lowe 26:06

And most people kind of know what that means now, but for those that don't, we will be posting our head judge, Rob, is gonna be doing some videos and some kind of teaching you, if you will, uh how our contest works. Uh, and he'll probably start that sometime in the next couple of months. But point is everybody that's planning on coming to the contest will be very aware of how our contest works before they ever get here. But there's going to be all sorts of cool uh categories. On that website I told you about, you'll be able to see up at the contest link uh aircraft, armor, automotive, ships, figures, science fiction, uh, factual space vehicles. And I believe that's the category that you guys are sponsoring, uh Mike. You're pretty pretty into that, aren't you?

Mike 26:56

Pretty into that. It's kept me busy since AMPS, that's for sure.

Kentucky Dave 26:59

He's about to shoot something up to the International Space Station if the weather will cooperate.

Brandon Lowe 27:06

Well, it it's gonna be neat to see that because like that, and then we have a trains category within the figures category. We have like dinosaurs, for example, is its own category. Some of these, some of these categories that are usually bunched up either in sci-fi or in miscellaneous, they're gonna get their own categories. And and you might say, well, with gold, silver, bronze, why does it matter? You could theoretically have one category for everything. And that is true, but what we're going to do is, for example, aircraft. You're going to have prop-driven small scale and prop driven large scale. Well, there's going to be a best small scale, prop-driven award given out, and then there's going to be a best aircraft overall, in addition to the best in show overall. Uh, so there's going to be a lot of different levels to shoot for uh in your model building.

Kentucky Dave 28:04

And I've always thought trains was a category that should exist at a lot of larger model shows, because what we do and what the train modelers do have so much overlap. I mean, Mike and I have know a number of our modeling friends who are also train modelers. Mike, Mike has been as well. And those techniques are bleeding over into that hobby and then therefore coming back toward us. And I think that's a great idea.

Brandon Lowe 28:38

Well, the interesting thing about it is the NMRA, the National Model Railroad Association, they're actually based out of Saudi Daisy, which is just north of Chattanooga. Yeah. And they're actually having their national convention here in town this year. But besides, you know, you say trains in our mines go to HO scale or NGAGE or or Lionel or whatever. But in reality, even in our IPMS and AMPS world, there are so many railroad items. I mean, think about the the 35th scale locomotives from that Trumpeter produces, or even my favorite, the big Dora railgun. Railgun, yeah. You know, all those kind of things that and the flak cars and and all these things that you see that are usually thrown into the rest of the armor. Giving these guys their own category, we're hoping that it'll draw some modelers out. You know, uh, Mike, we're talking about the real space vehicles. Usually that stuff is thrown in the mix with the sci-fi. Often it is, you're right.

Mike 29:45

Yeah.

Brandon Lowe 29:46

And if and if I'm a real space modeler, I'm building real subjects. I don't want to go take my stuff and stick it in the sci-fi and compete against the Millennium Falcon. So if having these categories for these guys, I think is going to be a really cool thing. We've got a category specific to the war gaming crowd. We've got a category specific to the the gunpla, the gundam crowd. One of our sayings, if you will, is if you glue it or snap it together and paint it, it's welcome at this show, and we're going to try to have a class for you. And I hope that that's going to be a big, a big deal for some people.

Kentucky Dave 30:27

Well, I'm looking forward to it. I've got it circled on the calendar next year already. Yep.

Mike 30:33

Are the room blocks open yet?

Brandon Lowe 30:35

They they are. They just opened in the last day or two. So the Marriott, uh, we've got room blocks there. We've got room blocks at the Stay Bridge Suites, which is at the opposite end of the hotel of the uh convention center, and then the Chattanoogan, which is just behind the convention center. Uh they've opened up a block of rooms as well.

Mike 30:57

I'm looking at the site now, and then there's like uh about ten others that are within walking distance.

Brandon Lowe 31:03

So Oh, yeah, there's so many hotels down there.

Masters Class And Eagle Trophies

Brandon Lowe 31:06

And and before we get off of it, if if I may, I gotta tell you about one of my favorite parts of the contest, the Masters class. So at the original MasterCon, and then into Eagle Quest, the whole contest was judged by the modelers. It was basically a popular vote by the modelers. If you entered the contest, you got a ballot to vote for your favorite model, and that's how they picked the winners. Well, we want to do that. This will kind of tie old Eagle Quest into new Eagle Quest. We want to do that in the master class. And the to enter the master class, the model entered has to have won the best of in a category or the best of show at a previous show. It can be any show. It can be the Amps Nationals, the IPMS Nationals, Wonderfest, one of the old Master Cons from 30 years ago. If your model has won the best and it's you know basically retired now, we would like you to bring it out of retirement and come and compete again.

Kentucky Dave 32:15

That's a great idea. I really like that idea.

Brandon Lowe 32:18

Because what happens is these models win at these shows.

Kentucky Dave 32:23

And then you never see them again.

Brandon Lowe 32:25

Exactly. So if we can get these guys to bring these and the what they're going to be competing for in this master class is if you've if you've seen pictures of old Eagle Quest and they're almost one-to-one scale Eagle trophy, that's coming back. Or or a variation of it. It won't be the exact same one. We've we're going to make a little modern day squadron version of it, if you will. It'll be cool.

Kentucky Dave 32:52

Mike and I have both seen that original award in person at one time or another. I know exactly what you're talking about.

Brandon Lowe 33:00

So the the big one is going to go to the winner overall in the master class, but we're going to have miniature versions of it that are going to go to the best aircraft armor, automotive ships, figures, sci-fi, and diorama and miscellaneous of the master class too. So we're really, really hoping that the master class is a big turnout because these guys, some of these guys, they don't compete anymore because, like, for example, in amps, once you become a master in amps, you can't compete anymore because you're a master. Right. And they do the same kind of thing at Wonder Fed. They they do a lot of that at a lot of shows. And some guys simply just don't compete anymore because they've won the best of the best over and over again. And they just, you know, I've got a lot of friends that say, I just I don't want to compete anymore because I've I've been there, I've done that, I've won everything there is to won, and it's somebody else's turn now. Well, this class, this is for you. I want the best of the best of the best to come and compete, whether it's a model that's won it all, or whether you're a master that has won it all, and you've got a new model to compete with. It's we're really hoping that it turns into something. It'll just be so cool to see, you know, the cream of the crop, if you will, all together and on one table on a display.

Mike 34:25

Well, we're really looking forward to this and we're happy with our involvement with it. And uh sure this is gonna come up in the months ahead on Plastic Model Mojo. Yes, well, we'll we'll keep promoting the show and uh really look forward to it, man. I'm gonna get some hotel, get a hotel room book.

Kentucky Dave 34:43

Yeah, get get that done, Mike.

Mike 34:45

I'll get that done. There you go. Well, Brandon, thanks for joining us again. I know it's taking a little time to get this together, but uh, we've talked about some things I wanted to talk about and look look forward to supporting you and the show and look forward to the next time we see you, man, which is gonna be at Wonderfest.

Brandon Lowe 35:00

Absolutely. Yeah, two weeks away. So looking forward to seeing you guys. We'll hopefully have a little bit more time to say hello than we did at Amps.

Mike 35:08

We did pretty good at Amps at the hotel that night. But uh Yeah, we did.

Brandon Lowe 35:12

Oh yeah, that's right. We had dinner. That's you are hey, but we talked about things a little bit outside of models. Oh, yeah. It was nice. It was just a couple of guys hanging out together. That was a nice topic.

Kentucky Dave 35:25

That's something that Mike and I emphasize all the time about trying to get people to go to shows because you find yourself starting to talk about models, and then you find out you've got all sorts of other common interests. Yep. And you do spend a lot of your time talking about stuff other than modeling.

Brandon Lowe 35:45

So that is true.

Kentucky Dave 35:47

I encourage everybody go to shows and particularly start planning to go to Eagle Quest.

Brandon Lowe 35:53

Well, we're looking forward to it for sure. But well, we will see you guys in a couple of weeks. I look forward to seeing you again.

Mike 35:59

All right, you got it. You take care.

Brandon Lowe 36:01

All right, buddy.

Final Takeaways And Go To Shows

Mike 36:06

Oh man, there's a lot there. I'm I'm there is wanting to see uh what the 3D print has in store here at the National Convention. Hope all his gears mesh and uh he can pull that off and uh have some new stuff to show people because I know the stuff we saw at Amps was really cool.

Kentucky Dave 36:20

Well, I'll tell you what, every time we talk to Brandon, it it he's got an enthusiasm that is just infectious. I mean, he he really has an enthusiasm for the hobby. And you know, you can't help when you're talking to him but get excited yourself. And I'll tell you, I'm really excited for Eagle Quest.

Mike 36:42

The co-hosting there with the Chattanooga Club was a great idea. It's a great town for a show. I can't wait either. And I'm really looking forward to our our little piece of that puzzle and promoting it and be front and center in the exhibition area when the thing finally comes around. So uh folks, mark that date off on your calendar and start planning to be there because he's putting he's putting it all behind this. So we want to help make it a big success so it'll keep going.

Kentucky Dave 37:07

Go make a hotel reservation now before they sell out.

Mike 37:11

Like the vendor tables already have, apparently.

Kentucky Dave 37:14

Exactly.

Mike 37:15

Well, Dave, we'll be back in a few days and the folks can hear episode 163. But until then, man, uh, we both need to get to the vent bench so we can populate that bench top halftime report segment.

Kentucky Dave 37:27

You got it. Go model.