The week of celebrations continues with the results of the Custom Model Awards! Out of all the beautiful and creative entries, three winners have been selected. PT-TAA, Driodoco_julius and Stang21181; congratulations on your victory! They did an amazing job on building a customized model, that’s why we have asked them to shortly share something about themselves.

Julius Alexander L. Driodoco aka Driodoco_julius is 20 years old, a nurse by profession and won the best Custom Model Aircraft category. Based in the Philippines he spend most of his time practicing his profession while during his day offs; he spend it with his hobby which is customization (both aircraft and bus models). He found wings900 2-3 years ago when he was "googling" for a Philippine Airlines A380 and Google brought him to the forum of a customized PAL A380 made for Rex. His interest for that particular custom model made him sign up at wings900.

“I have 37 models in my collection which are mainly 1:400 in scale and some in 1:500. Probably, my model won because it was like a Fictional vs Non Fictional Airline Contest. Knowing ModelmanGB, he has produced a LOT of REALLY GOOD, NICE and QUALITY custom models. HATS OFF to ModelmanGB as he is one of the finest custom model make I ever saw not to mention PT-TAA as well.”

Sergio Lins de Holanda Teixeira aka PT-TAA was born in Recife, Pernambuco State, Brazil in 1971. Doing customs is no more only a hobby for him; since last year it became his fulltime job. His new job has many challenges but according to him, it's worth the efforts. He found out about wings900 in 2005 via his friend Lollo, and since 2007 became a member.



“Currently I have "officially" 703 diecast planes in 1/500 scale on my collection. The number in reality is much higher because of the donors for my own custom projects that I haven't included. Since few months ago I was focused mainly on collecting Singapore, Qantas, Braniff, JAL, Pan Am, American, TWA, Continental, Star Alliance, Portuguese speaking countries' airlines, Embraers and Convairs jetliners, but now I'm adding more airline and themes to my collection, thanks to the custom works, except fantasy ones, which I have very few. I think the reason that led my custom to win is all the amount of work required to make it, I've shown all the steps and because the MD-11 is a much liked (and wanted) airplane, especially in KLM new livery. “



Alastair King aka Stang21181 is based out of Melbourne and has been on the 737 for 2 1/2 years now. When he is not completing custom model requests and out of the house hanging out with mates and doing other things, he is a full time pilot with Qantas Airways as a First Officer on the 737. Most of his flying is domestic within Australia occasionally they venture across to New Zealand or do a couple of flights to Singapore to Ferry Aircraft for maintenance. His favourite sectors are the ones into Canberra and into Ayres Rock. He was told about Wings 900 through a fellow collector about 1 1/2 years ago so he decided to see what else was talked about in the modelling community on other forums. He collects mainly 1/200 diecast aircrafts and doesn’t really have a particular theme collection.

 “I don't know what to say..... Thank you so much to all the people that voted for me in the competition I cant thank you enough it is very humbling..... Thank you for the opportunity to let me enter this competition. The custom community is full of so many customizers who are just so talented and I just love how each of us loves to share hints tips and experience around the community and I hope this continues in the future because that is what it is all about. I mainly collect some rare and hard to find 1/200 scale models like the Herpa Premiums - Air New Zealand Lord of the Rings models 744s 767 and A320. I also have started collecting 1/72 RAAF Fighters ie the lastest Hobby master F-111s etc. I also collect a few 1/100 and 1/50 Pacmins and some of the pacmins include 1/50 Scale Qantas Yananyi Dreaming 737-800, which was the first 737-800 i flew when I checked to line as a F/O with Qantas, Continental 1/100 Peter Max 777, and my favourite 1/100 a Space models 1/100 Gulf Air 767 in 50th Anniversary colours..... which is why i did the same plane in 1/200 diecast as a custom. There are so many good custom makers out there like Bill-ay, Brad Shin, and Kai (They are the real customizers!) and so on that really I don't know why it won but I think the model would of won because of the difference and challenge of the decal making and colour scheme. The decals took a very long time to produce using Adobe illustrator and I was so satisfied with the result that I have the first Gulf Air 767 "50th Anniversary" custom that I did in my collection. I would say its the pride of my 1/200 die cast collection. Thank you once again for the fellow members support and again I am very humbled.”

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