Hello dear Jungle Readers!
today we want to present you our impressions of this years Scale Model Challenge in Eindhoven.
If you want to see more event reports like this, please follow this link to MV's event report area.

The MV jungle arrived there with quite the gang as Oliver, Peter, Benedikt, Raffaele, Phil and Roman were there. We arrived with different travel plans, so not all in one car, but arriving in Eindhoven we expected to see many people and of course eachother.

We missed some of our monkey brothers, but Scale Model Challenge was just a blast, mainly people-wise. So many friends there, so much family, so much happy people, so much painting and hobby going on and so much wonderful organisation by the SMC team. 





Peter:
Roman and Raffa often asked me, if I would like to join them and make a roadtrip to SMC. In the last years I sadly never found the time to do so, but this year I spontaneously decided to just take the chance. WBy having a two day event ahead, it´s much more releaxed to travel through half of Germany. Due to my work I was only able to be in Eindhoven from Saturay to Sunday, but nevertheless it was an awesome event! So many painters from all around the world, a HUGE vendor area and and even more impressive showroom for the miniatures. The two days went by in no time. I had so many nice chats with old friends and found a lot of new one. Now, SMC is a must-do-event for me and the next date is already fixed in my calender. Make sure to be there, too!


Raffa:
It was fantastic being there again, we skipped a year and I was happy to see that in this year the show got even bigger! Now it is a two day event and both days were absolutely full of great moments. My biggest joy on the shows is to see all the friends and people from all over the world, have chats and spend some good time. I just love that.
I also enjoyed being a part of FeR Miniatures, spending a little time at the booth there and doing my demo, having some time for painting is always cool.
As a judge, this year also had a challenge for me. There were much more and higher level miniatures in the competition than the last time I visited and so we spent quite some time judging our categories.
The biggest "suprise" were the Italian guests, seeing Francesco out of Monte is a great pleasure, finally some calm moments to talk with him where he does not have to organize a big show.
Phew, there were so many cool moments on that weekend, it's hard to find the highlights.
It's also always such a pleasure to visit Phil's home in Cologne before we start off to the show, almost a tradition :)

Demo-Raffa!




Benedikt:



Oliver:
Bigger, Better..SMC. It is really interesting to see the great development of this model show. Every year I think, wow, that was great..and in the next year they top it again. My congratulations for the whole team. They act very professional in every process during the show and for me it was a good step to change it to a two day event. There is really much to see a great competition area, with so many fantastic entries, in figures, sculpting, model kits or huge dioramas, than a huge area to spend money for new projects and many hobby clubs show their latest stuff and paint on the show. That’s maybe the only negative point on this show - No joke. I hope now you don’t think they bought my comment, sadly I got nothing :D If you haven't visit this show yet give it a try.



Roman:
"This year was my first time visiting the Scale Model Challenge as a visitor. Of course I have visited it before, but often was busy with judging or MV booth work. So this years impression was different. Not different in terms on how great the SMC is organised, not different on how many wonderful cool people you are able to meet on the SMC, not different on how cool the time spent there is. For me it was different in terms of time and hectic. Beside my lesson that I learned to not bring 44 models to a contest to enter everything was relaxed and cool. 44 Models are just too much for unpacking and packing. Ridicolous. Lesson learned. Relaxed. Thanks, Judith for being so patient with the annoying, bearded german with too many models. 

Well, SMC is improving each year, from perfect to more perfection. The team behind the SMC is so big and well coordinated and focuses. It is unbelievable. In terms of organisation one of the best shows I have been too. A lot of cool projects to see in the painting and scale model challenge which was - again - super greatly organised (signing in your entries on computers! The Future!!). 

The two day event schedule does the SMC justice. One day would just make everything superstressful. No need for that. Wonderful two days full of nice chats, miniatures, clubs, vendors and much more! I for my part enjoyed seeing many friends again the most, the small basketball session we organised (maybe next year we will hold a small tournament, eh?) and the great talks after the show in the bars. It was just a lovely experience being at the SMC as a visitor. I can only recommend it to you!"




Phil:
"As expected our dutch friends once more gave us one of the coolest shows and the best SMC yet.
This years show was by far the biggest edition for figure painters, especially from the fantasy genre. We had so many first time visitors that never came to SMC before or haven't been there for some time. And for the first time I had a feeling scale modellers have for years at SMC – The happines of meeting a lot of friends. It was almost like a tiny pre Monte.

If you have been to Eindhoven you know they have a huuuuge shopping area, mainly scale models. But for two year they have second one focusing on fantasy stuff. This years was pretty cool with brands like Scale75, Vallejo, Kontraros, Pegaso, Aradia, Fer and even Nuts Planet all the from Korea.

So you see SMC is worth travel. If you still haven't been there I cannot help you.

The best thing about SMC is we already know next years edition will be even better!"




A part of the club area ...



This years SMC was great fun not only for the MV team. So many good talks, so much time for it, so much beautiful models on display, so many vendors and so much great stuff to see and experience, none the less getting lost again in the depths of the Konigshof dungeon. Beware of polish friends crawling these dungeons at night, they might offer you hard drinks or even force you to it :D

We also took good use of the Konigshof gym, pool and sauna area. A little sport in between the figures and talks about figures is always nice and as proven means a different communication between people. Sport is great. Thanks for everyone who played with us. It was a lot of fun. Next year we hope our french friends bring their sportswear.


Thanks Matthias for taking so many cool photos of this sports event.
Here you can find a full gallery of fun. Roman already spoke with Robert and maybe next years SMC will have an official small basketball tournament with sponsored prizes. Cool, eh?

We want to thank the great team of the SMC for their wonderful support and fantastic organisation. Still the SMC grows better and better each year. Isn't this cool?



Of course we got some more impressions for you.
Enjoy the photos:


More Vendors!






Roman was walking around asking everyone to shake their faces in slow motion for a wonderful video report of SMC. Thanks to all the 126 people who joined. Unfortanetely the video work takes Raffa a little longer than expected, but we can be sure to see a wonderful video, when it is done. We ask for a little more patience, until then a photo of Manu our friend from DieVincis ...



This year we saw an amazing number of cool entries to the SMC. There were so many galleries online via facebook, but here is one we enjoyed a lot by Matthias.

Of course we saw many more, but somehow we all got flashed by the sheer number of SMC posts after the show, that we just forgot to collect them properly. Monkeys.