Hey Eric!
You know we all hugely appreciate you coming down and your Sabre went so far beyond what can be considered the standard judging criteria. There are aspects of your Sabre build that can't simply be judged. How can one judge Brick's response to seeing a model of his ride from years past? You did a really awesome thing mate and it was a honour and a pleasure to be witness to this process. You did have that references SNAFU as well, which did not help right? Personally, I preferred your A-4G over the SAAF Mirage, but I am biased in this regard. What one judge may like, another judge may not - the human element comes into play. Only way around this is to have multiple judges per category and this is impossible of course. I've been told too that often the judging results can be so close and only a point or two will determine the placings. I've tried and failed campaigning for some "degree of difficulty" factor to be including in the judging. This will separate the largely OOB builds that fall together from those that take a lot of effort to get right. I do not believe the "Realism" weighting covers this at all. You got caught with this with your beautiful Meatbox I think as well. Of course I could be wrong here and judges would argue that good references to determine the "realism" is enough. Doing some research, I have seen "degree of difficulty" being introduced as a judging criteria in other model comp's overseas.
You do have a very good point about attending the Queensland comp. My main issue here is time mate. Most weekends these days involve ferrying kids all over the place, maintenance jobs around the house and maybe getting 1 or 2 hours to myself in the man cave. Time issues will get worse for me before they get better - in about 12 years time!
As my ol' ex-Navy boss used to say to me years ago - "Adam, it's your turn in the bucket!"
I wasn't being serious about raising the bar higher mate. I do not want you to pressure yourself any more than you do - modelling is supposed to be fun isn't it?
I suffered modelling burnout after my F-105D experience - could not look at the model desk for over 12 months! The Brick/Sabre experience was pretty special as was what you did with the Mirage. Sometimes all the stars come into alignment and the result is something very special. My priority will be to get a couple of 1/32 jets finished this year. I just have to be more disciplined and make the best use of my time. As has been said "your focus determines your reality!"
Bravo on your Model Expo 2016 success and see you next year!
Cheers
Adam