Sky Guardians. The Slovakian Air Force paint shop won the war. Pitted against the finest spray painters in the world, the Slovak team walked away with the "Paint-by-Tape" trophy (a brass replica of a role of tape held up by a pair of calloused hands erupting from a tarmac plinth) in the first international "Crazed and Dazelled Painting" competition held at Farnborough. The competition included a Jaquar painted like a leapord, and a Sea King painted (apparently) like a zebra. In the end, it was no contest, and the pixels swept the awards, winning not only the PbT trophy, but the "Least Likely to be Represented by a Diecast Model" award, and the traffic controller's "Honest, I Didn't See It" award.

Eventually, in apparent jest (or an attempt at much needed publicity), Witty Wings announced that they would be creating a diecast version of what had become known as the Pixelator. As soon as the announcement was made, the entire Witty planning and tampo staff walked out in protest. They eventually returned at half wages (with no lunch breaks) when they discovered that no one wanted to hire ex-Wittyites. "You're from Witty? WITTY? Are you joking?" In the end, the snubbed and half-wage Wittyites were driven by revenge to do the impossible, namely win the PbT, and do it with tampo pixels (or pixel tampos, they didn't devulge). After countless 25 hour days (actually, 16 days), and many smeary, blurry false starts, the Wittyites produced a magnificent model that almost (but not quite) swept the pre-orders. As a collector said, when he couldn't get his, "This is my worst nightmare come true..."

If you ain't got it, get it.