Dumbest guy in the room

When I retired from PHINUG two years ago, my attention gradually shifted to the plastic scale modeling community. That wasn't as dramatic a shift as one might imagine—I first joined IPMS Philippines Bert Anido 23 years ago, and I've been part of the scale modeling community, on and off, for more than two decades. I've had years when I didn't attend and nearly a decade when I didn't build scale models at all, but I always kept in touch with my friends from the club.

Things took a drastic turn when, in 2024, I decided to help out with the very first Philippine Scale Model Show (PSMS) by handling social media and photography. It was a massive show with no less than 600 scale model entries, held in one of the largest malls in Manila. I was pulled into the organizing committee by friends who are internationally recognized in the community: three of them had been judges in international competitions in Malaysia and Hong Kong, two have models displayed in the Tamiya factory museum in Japan, and the rest have won multiple awards in scale model competitions both local and foreign.

In contrast, I had never won an award in a scale model competition. In fact, I didn't even have a scale model entry during the first year. I was perfectly happy handling the event's social media, realizing that unlike my previous tech community where I was the lead and the mentor, here I was the "n00b." I was learning something new all the time, and it felt amazing.

Still, a nagging feeling overcame me whenever someone asked, "Where is your entry?"

I didn't have one.

While documenting the show was fulfilling on its own, the sheer inspiration of the event pushed me to build an entry for PSMS 2025. I entered it but didn't win anything. Truth be told, I was quite happy with the certificate of participation, and to be the "dumbest guy in the room"—surrounded by and working with literal scale modeling legends.

Coming off the high of PSMS 2025, I actually finished two entries for PSMS 2026. I quickly completed a Bandai Millennium Falcon for my first entry, and was determined to put in an entry for the sparsely participated Rockets and Real Space category. I found a 1/72 Revell V2 Rocket on sale, complete with decal options for Aggregat 4—the first rocket to cross the Kármán line, the boundary between Earth's atmosphere and outer space. I poured everything into the model: the rocket, the launch pad, a painstaking masking job, and multiple retouches and corrections. It became my first-ever fully weathered build. I applied the lessons learned from workshops conducted by Arcus Hobby Colours and various YouTube tutorials the best I could.

I came into the Philippine Scale Model Show 2026 with the same mindset as previous years: without expectations for my entry. Fully focused on documenting the nearly 700 models, I immediately got busy taking photos and videos of the event. When the awarding ceremony began, I set up my tripod for the video and settled in, fully expecting to be offstage for the entire ceremony.

When my name was called, I almost panicked. I quickly handed my camera to a fellow organizer who was at the bottom of the stage.

And just like that, after over two decades in the hobby, I received my first award in a scale model competition.

While I'm incredibly proud of this build and this achievement, I still have a lot more skills to learn and a long way to go in this hobby. That said, I am very grateful to be surrounded by people who absolutely excel in this craft, and to be learning from them. As I enter my late 40s, it's refreshing to demonstrate that I can still pick up new skills and learn new things—not just in technology, but in the tangible, artistic sphere of humanity, an area that feels increasingly threatened and overshadowed by a growing global obsession with AI.

More importantly, though, I rekindled my love for a hobby that I didn't have the chance to master when I was younger.