Mecha Modeling Workshop (Anime Boston 2004)

Anime Boston 2004 was the first time we held the Mecha Modeling Workshop. We got a healthy chunk of time, 5 hours on Saturday night, opposite the Masquerade, as well as a good room. For me, the Anime Boston event was a first trial of the workshop, and a practice run for Otakon 2004, which I considered to be the "main event". The preparation for the workshop at AB2004 was also the process of establishing the structure and format of the workshop: how and what to teach, how long each part of the process should take, and so on.

Before the work for AB2004 began in earnest, most of the discussion about the event had been rather abstract, in online forums. Since I knew I couldn't do this alone, I sought out the other Gundam modelers who I knew to not be impractically far from Boston. Doug DeRienze was able to help me, and in the end he took as big a role in the workshop as I did: he wrote about half the presentation, helped test the materials we'd use and figure out how long different stages of work should take, and during the workhop itself he was an excellent speaker and very able to take the reins when I was busy talking to AB staff or signing papers or whatnot.

There were a few unfortunate snags along the way. One of the worst was my selection of glue bottles for the workshop. I bought the Testor's liquid glue in the dispenser bottle with the plastic applicator tip. Unfortunately, these are utter garbage. The plastic applicator tips always get clogged, and are often nearly impossible to clear. (Fortunately for me, Testor's corp was nice enough to replace these with the superior Model Master variety, which has a metal applicator tip.) The choice of paint brushes could have been better as well: the brushes were ordered online, and were somewhat too stiff for my taste, and also too long to fit in the take-home boxes. There was also an hour or so near the end of the workshop where I was desperately hungry. We ordered pizza and gave everybody a break to feed themselves - but that went on longer than it should have.

Despite these minor problems, people got pretty far along on their projects. We had a pretty good crowd for the event, 14 people out of a maximum of 20. I was very pleased with how it all turned out.