SCALE MODEL NEWS

THE VISUALS ON MODEL KIT BOXES are what the marketing men call ‘primary sales tools.’ Simply put, if you can spot an attractive box in a store or on screen, the odds are that you’ll want to home in for a closer look.  SMN report:  Today's kits may use photographs, artwork, or a blend of the two. For example, many boxes in the Airfix range display a handsome photorealistic look, aided by CGI (Computer Graphic Imagery) software. Back in the heyday of the plastic kit, the 1950s and 1960s, box art was usually created by hugely talented commercial artists, mostly unsung heroes of the illustration world. Kits were graced with beautiful paintings, many of them fit to be framed and hung on a wall. However, in graphic studios it was usual practice to leave a visual unsigned, or even to paint out a signature before printing. The practise sounds brutal, but clients were promoting particular products, rather than any individual artist’s style of work. But over the years, it’s good to repo...

WE'RE PLEASED TO SAY that the new Airfix Boeing B-17G Flying Fortress is now available, and very good it looks, too. SMN report: The new kit's box art is extremely handsome, and a near-match for the classic painting by the grand master of the genre, the late Roy Cross . As usual with Airfix, decals supplied with the kit offer a choice of markings ( below ). But as some 8680 B-17Gs were built, there's no shortage of choice if you want to build something different. Click here for more on B-17 kits at SMN. Click here for more on Roy Cross. Click here for more at Airfix. And to put you in the mood, here's a video clip from the excellent 1990 movie Memphis Belle . Unmissable, especially if you crank up your loudspeakers to the max.

The auction house Vectis has a sale that will include the last major tranche of original Roy Cross Airfix artwork, selected by Roy himself from his personal collection. The Vectis sale is on Thursday July 24, 2014. SMN report: 90-year old Roy Cross was the principal artist for Airfix during the 1960s and 1970s, when plastic kit popularity was at its peak. He created hundreds of images of the world’s most famous aircraft, and other subjects. This week’s sale is quite a haul that includes box art, printer’s proofs, sketches, drawings, tracings and watercolours. For the keen modeller, perhaps the most interesting items are illustrations that never made it to the printer - rejects, roughs, and other original stuff which has never been seen in public. Why has Roy decided to put his work up for sale? It’s mainly to clear studio space, though the prospect of a £20,000 sale total can’t be too off-putting either. Rest assured, any collector who buys a Roy Cross item is on to a winner - his wor...

David Jefferis reports Here we have 100 colour pages of the new and revived Airfix Magazine - well, it's now retitled Airfix Model World for 2010 - and a pretty good effort it is too. I’ve been involved with several magazine launches over the years, and know a little of the sweat and toil that goes into the first one. It’s always a steep learning curve and I doubt this launch AFW is an exception. So well done to the team involved. What’s it like? First off is the cover - and centre-spread - both of which feature the work of the Airfix ‘wunderkind’ box-artist, Adam Tooby. He’s already up there in the pantheon of the best - Roy Cross, at last you have a decent successor. Tooby manages to combine the precision of computer generated imagery with an artist’s touch for the finished work. I reckon we’ll see a few of his box-tops appearing as art prints before too long. See inside Editorial is wide-ranging, with a strong feature on the 1:48 Sea Vixen kit from Airfix, which has some very ni...