A couple of weeks back I thought I’d take in a relatively local show, which turned out to be the MAFVA (pronounced ‘Mafia’, as it turns out) Nationals. MAFVA is the Model Armoured Fighting Vehicles Association, and – as you might know or have gathered – I don’t really do vehicles. I quite like looking at them, but I have very little desire to paint a tank or anything like that. For me, a vehicle is basically scenery. That’s not to say that I don’t think there’s anything interesting about them, just that they’re really not for me.
Anyway, this meant that the show didn’t really have much for me beyond the competition – there were a lot of traders, but I don’t need to buy sets of tracks or etched brass rivets. Funnily enough.
Beyond that, it was a good opportunity to go to the Other St Ives. Many more people will know about St Ives, Cornwall, but St Ives, Cambridgeshire, is also a very pretty town, and I’ve not been there for years and my wife has never been, so it was a good opportunity for that. Also, there were ducklings on the river, which kept us very entertained when we went out for lunch. So, first up, a couple of pictures of the locale:
The town proudly displays its history with Cromwell, who points accusingly at everyone in the market square, and the nearby bridge has a built-in chapel, which I can only assume is for ease of baptism/witch dunking.
So, on to the competition pictures:
As you’ll note, there are very few figures. In fact, from 23 categories to enter, only one was dedicated to figures and I turned up with four and took up half of it. So, if you’re a figure painter and not interested in vehicles, this is not the show for you. On the other hand, if you like tanks and trucks and so on, it’s probably not a bad show. I don’t really know enough about that part of the hobby to judge. As I say, there were quite a lot of traders, and it seemed very friendly.
In the end, I took a silver (for the Burgundian halberdier) and two bronzes (for the Occitan knight and the ruddy duck – as promised, I didn’t bring the full display). My android bust got nothing, which I suspect is down to a dislike of fantasy. I did note that even in the categories that permitted sci-fi/fantasy vehicles there were only paper panzers.
I understand there’s a figure-focused show at the same venue in September, so I’ll likely be back for that, although it does clash with Scale Scotland, which I’d been thinking about heading to.
In other news, I have been painting more ducks, although a dearth of plinths has been holding me back. I’ve just insisted that Martin provide more, so I should have some new additions to the duck display shortly.
Fet Paints 