Box Art - unsung Airfix hero

[mattbacon]

I fell into conversation with a very nice chap behind a table at Huddersfield while buying his book about Dino sports cars, who asked me "what's with the Classic Box Art t-shirt, then?", and then reminisced about meeting Roy Cross and telling him that it was his Airfix box tops that had got this bloke started on illustration. Anyway, it turns out that his name was Paul Monteagle, and he'd done a number of paintings for Airfix, mostly the "Vintage Aircraft" and "Historic Cars" boxings.

This teeny tiny example is the only one I can find online:


He also did most of the Blue Max/Silver Cloud boxes for Chris Gannon, and a lot of covers for Windsock Datafiles with Ray Rimmell.

You can see his box artwork here:

http://paulmonteagle.zxq.net/plastic_kit_box_art.html;

and navigate around the site (click on "illustrations" to find the Windsock covers) to see the rest of his work.

There are several of his illustrations in the Airfix books, but he's not credited (I think a lot of people think the Airfix boxes he did are just adaptations of an existing Roy Cross picture)

Anyway, I just thought that while we were all getting interested in Box Art that we shouldn't forget an artist who did some very nice painted box art in an era when Airfix had lost their way somewhat...

bestest,
M.

[bobblelink]

He did some very nice stuff, it is right that he should be better known

[nashorn]

I am wondering what people do with their empty boxes once the kit has been built, do you throw them away, keep them, cut the pictured out, what ?. it may be a strange thing to think about but its bothering me.

[lancfan]

I chuck out most of my boxes but when I find a favourite classic boxtop image it is saved to be mounted & framed.



David.

[nashorn]

Thats a great idea and it looks really good.

[ShaunW]

I am wondering what people do with their empty boxes once the kit has been built, do you throw them away, keep them, cut the pictured out, what ?. it may be a strange thing to think about but its bothering me.

I'm afraid I just chuck them Nashorn, even the classic ones. David's framing of his classic box art does look good however.

[JohnRatzenberger]

I have a lot of that artwork in the form of Blue Max kits and Windsocks ... saw a couple Windsocks I need to get also ....