Dear friends,

While shopping for our models, I am sure a pleasing box art is the first thing that captures our attention- putting the kit reviews we get online.

One of my fav box art is the vintage SU-100, one can almost feel the smell of gunpowder from it and the tension of the battle presented in the picture. Even when I am done with the kit, I still keep the box as a display in my room.


http://www.tamiya.com/english/products/25104su100

I must say that the box arts of Tamiya are more tamed these days, only showing the vehicle, it is rare to see the "thick action of battle" presented in box arts these days.

What is your fav box art? open for discussion

Vincent Wai's box art has always been one of my favourites.

Tamiya box art has always been very good - both those older "battle scene" boxes and the more commom "white box" illustrations.

I also believe that while ultimately it's the contents of the box that's most important, good box art can still sway a modeller's choice to a degree - or at least draw his attention to a particular kit in the first place, and I think that it's importance can't be overstated. It is after all one of the first things that catches the modeller's eye.

As for box art being "tamer" than it was years ago, you're absolutely correct. That all began when "political correctness" started to take off in the second half of the 1970s.

For some reason, the metrosexual hand-wringers and do-gooders who were steadily extending their influence throughout politics and the media (and indeed the Western socio-political system in general) got it into their silly heads that such box art "glamourised" war and violence. Consequently, pressure began to be put on kit makers to tone down the violence.

This was targeted initially at Airfix in particular, as in those days they were the biggest name on a market that (unlike today) was still seen largely as a "kids'" hobby. But it had a knock-on effect on others such as Revell and Tamiya also.

End result? Much of the "violence" on model box art (gunfire, explosions, human casualties etc.) was literally airbrushed out of existing illustrations, and new kits were released with tame (and in some cases very lame) box art.

As for a favourite boxtop illustration, I'd be hard pressed to choose one favourite. But DML also tend to be very good, and one that springs immediately to mind is the illustration for their 1990s-vintage Jagdtiger (kit 6050), which is very much in the style and tradition of those excellent 1970s Tamiya "full battlefield" illustrations.

- Steve

I honestly like the quite 'minimalist' look of Tamiya box art.

My favourite box arts are not Tamiya though:

It is mostly the current figure box arts for Zvezda releases

the box art for Roden's Sd.Kfz.263 (the one with two of them speeding through a desert chasing a 'rodent' with a fortress in the BG).

this

and the box of Roden's Opel Mauliter (Dark ruins for a BG with lightning and rain)

this

There was actually a collection of Tamiya box art by Yoshiyuki Takani published in book form many years ago - I picked one up in the early 80's.

This book contains colour plates of many of the "classic" examples of Tamiya box art with full backgrounds, covering armour, ships, aircraft and even a couple of R/C cars.

I have to say that I am not much of a fan of Tamiya box arts as they are just too simplistic for me. I have not seen any of the old ones but the ones in current releases don't do much for me. As for a favorite box art, well, this one tops them ALL for me:



Rob

I'm a big fan of Tamiya's box art; for one thing it is universally well executed from an artistic and technical point of view. Something that is not always the case with some manufacturers. In fact there design is so good, AFV Club pretty much copied it, and imitation is, as they say, the sincerest form of flattery

I like others too though
This is one of my all time favourites:


For sheer bonkers-ness if nothing else

Even though I'm not a panzer fan, I also rather like this one:


and some of the oldies are real goodies for me. The Tamiya 1/35 centurion had possibly my favourite box tops of all time

Tamiya boxarts are amazing, I really love them. I prefer those with no background. I tried to find them in good size but failed. They are really hard to find.
Also Ron Volstad has done great artworks for DML - it is main reason why I chose to do only DML figure kits. My favourite is this one:



Btw, who is the author of Tamiya boxarts?

Although it's a "winged thingy", I find this particular piece of boxtop artwork particularly evocative:



And here's DML's Jadgtiger 6050 that I mentioned above:



- Steve

One of my favorite Tamiya box tops was the Centurion one. That tank looked like it meant business. My second favorite one was the Tamiya M1 Abrams 3-motor remote control box top.

I was never a fan of the standard subject picture on a plain white box top design that Tamiya most often uses. It does beat the poorly built Tamiya-knock off photo that Academy used to use.

I seem to remember the original box art for the Tamiya quad 2omm flak SDKFZ7 flak wagon showed a combat scene. That made a big impression on me when I was quite young. Also, Roy Cross's box art for Airfix were fantastic - special mention being their 88mm Gun & tractor, Lancaster, Stirling and Flying Fortress.
When you saw these box covers you just had to have them!!

AndyC.

Hi Steve,

Yeap, the Jagdtiger sure looks mean and nice.

Cheers
Musicwerks

Hi Andy,

Roy cross box art looks good, very vintage and reminds me of my elementary school days when dad use to buy airfix planes for me

I'd vote for Tamiya box art as well, looks very nicely done, and I must say it pulls me to go and get their kits.

My favorite is the old Fallschirmjager figure set -- I particularly like the guy poised to throw a grenade. Come to think of it, it was the first Tamiya kit I bought ages ago. Most of what I have (and seen) are the white box types, I'd say the full box art would be the older releases (?). White box or not, it still is very appealing to me.

I used to buy Matchbox kits in my younger days. They also do have very nice box art, suggesting action and movement. Over time I think they also moved from full box art to white ones -- maybe to reduce costs.

Cheers,

Tat

@ sabot: Is this the one you mean?

@ Tat: There ya go!



Just a pity that the quality of the box contents doesn't match the quality of the artwork.

- Steve

Hey, thanks for posting this Steve! Sure brings back old memories. I think I still have that box somewhere... Yep, agree with you on the quality of the figures -- the grenade thrower in mine had very poor detail. Still impressive artwork though -- enough to inspire me to think I can do good on modelling figures!

Cheers,

Tat

Who cares how many weeks pocket money it cost, you just had to buy it or what till Christmas...





Not a Tamiya "Classic" but another make from that era I think.

Alan

My personal favourite, though mostly aircraft, is the Airfix boxart. So many great ones to choose from.

Unfortunately, they too are suffering from PC madness and gone are the days of planes on fire, dropping bombs - now they must all play nicely together.

Just some picked at random from google image search

http://www.avkits.net/kit50/airfix/remember/sunderland/sunderland_t3.jpg

http://www.mossie.org/models/Airfix_1-72_mkII-VI-XVIII/Airfix_1-72_MKII-MKVI-MKXVIII.jpg




Cheers,

Nigel

@ Tat: You're welcome.

@ Nige: That Airfix B-17 is an absolute classic. By Roy Cross, I believe.

I honestly believe that part of the reason why Airfix (arguably the biggest player on the model kits market at the time) suffered a massive downturn in their fortunes from the early '80s is because they began packaging their kits in those crappy "politically correct" boxes that just showed the model (usually poorly finished) on top of a blueprint.

Utterly boring. Totally uninspiring. No wonder kids weren't encouraged to take up the hobby.

@ Alan: Those two boxtops are a couple of crackers. Look not just at the tanks themselves but also the backgrounds - full of foreboding, full of menace. Powerful stuff which (whether you're 14 or 40) really makes you want to build the diorama.

Your "who cares how many weeks pocket money it cost, you just had to buy it or what till Christmas" statement made me smile as well: Only recently a mate of mine was telling me how back in the '70s, he saved up for literally months to buy Tamiya's 1/25 scale motorised Tiger 1 for the princely sum of GBP 9.99 (that's nine pounds ninety nine pence)!!

'Appy days.

- Steve

Hi Alan,

I believe that this pic (Tiger I) comes from the "Tamiya Box Art" book I referred to above. There is a band down the right hand side of the pic which shows a pattern formed by the edge of the pages which appears to be nearly identical to the band on a pic I scanned some years ago (don't know if it's the actual pic I scanned, I guess it's possible)

http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k198/Phil_H_au/misc/T1-1.jpg

I'll add another one from the book:

I like box art and there are some good books on it now, but let me share one of Tamiya's 'Holy Grails' I know is for sale (not by me, but I have actually touched it).

@ Peter: Nice one! But the question now is that having touched it, will you ever wash your hands again ?

In a similar vein, here are a few more '60s / early '70s vintage Tamiya box arts ...










The "Time Capsule - Remagen Bridgehead" diorama kit looks to be nothing more than the old U.S. Army tank crew with (presumably) some sort of simple diorama base.

And oh for a new AMX30 tooling (sigh).

- Steve

OT, but upon my return to the US in 1991, I bought that same 1/25 Tiger 1 for $50 at the Ft. Knox Armor School bookstore. It was a massive amount of money for an armor kit at the time, but I had plenty of pocket money though; probably 6 months worth of pay I had virtually no way to spend before returning.

I remember browsing and turning my nose up at a series of books by an author named Hunnicutt in that same bookstore. I wondered who would ever pay almost $100 for a tank book. I wish I had bought them.

A "could-a, should-a" moment, methinks .

- Steve