How many things are wrong in this picture?

[Rob Hart]

This was actually the first Airfix kit I built. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit the box art probably influenced my juvenile buying decision.

[petrov27]

wow - that's awesome - is that a Japanese Zero exploding overhead?

[rhallinger]

. . . or a Kate torpedo bomber?  .

[IanB]

Not to mention the paddle guy facing the wrong way, someone standing on the flight deck, and another Buccaneer flying through the approach! I assume this was a practice formation approach for an air display with pyrotechnics supplied by ex WWII drones!

Ian

[GAJouette]

 Wow someone dropped the ball at Airfix's art department. Along with the already mentioned it appears to have borrowed parts of John Steels artwork for Revell boxtops from the fifties and sixties. I can't remember which boxtops but it depicted the Battle of Midway. The deck grew look an awful lot like a old Monogram boxtop to my eyes.

Rob don't feel too bad, bought many an Aurora Zeros and painted them in yellow just like the box art showed.

Highest Regards,
Gregory Jouette

[kornbeef]

Dreadful artwork but I seem to recall it was a pretty good kit for its day, If I remember right it had folding tail etc. I never bought one though.

I just have this image of the artist with is tongue poked out the side of his mouth scrunched excitedly over his drawing board making whoosh pow and zoom noises.

Keith

[uncletony]

Wow, maybe we should start a thread for awful/ unintentionally funny box art -- this would be hard to top.

[Jacek]

"De gustibus non disputandum" 
For me the box art is a small nightmare, but surely these were trends 

[Ernie]

Yep, I would say someone got their wires crossed in a big way!

Cheers,
Ernie

[mgunns]

I think a lot of these box arts were done for dramatic puproses.  Revell artists from the 50's often put the subject in impossible situations.  The original box art for the Revell Hawaiin Pilot shows the ship coming into port with Diamond head in the back ground.  Totally fictitious.  The artist also has a parrot in the tree adding a nice touch.  I get a kick out of the box art; if nothing else a lot of excitement and action, a rather boring aircraft model, but very exciting box art made to appeal to the adolescent market and fire the imagination.  Now as adults we look at it and go......no way, but at the time it sold kits and no one cared.

Best

Mark

[uncletony]

Hmm, this one is pretty bad...our hero appears to be on fire...



Ah yes, the famous all red Messerschmitt Jabos... not everyone can do perspective...




Eek.. I guess pictures of actual MiGs were hard to come by in those days...

[mc65]

well, what's wrong?
a buccaneer who goes around with a bit of tailwind while other two orbit in a non-standard circuit, while a zero crashes in flames and the flight deck is occupied by some staff ... ordinary administration, in the navy, it's say!

bo, nice collection of oddities! I should look in my garret... I remember one that struck me as a child:

why he does not use the door? why he wears the underwear over the leotard? why he does not ruffles?

[lcarroll]

   Gotta love the memories!!, Bo, I saw them all on shelves in their day and bought more then just a few of them. The 109 I got (my second or third plastic Kit ever!) was actually molded in red/maroon styrene! Then there was the Mig 19, even at the tender age of 11 or 12 I determined that this Kit was flawed and refused to add it to my collection.(I had two overlapping paper routes and basically bought a Kit per week!) The Lindberg 87, actually built into a respectable Model which I did in "browns" in the mid 50's!   I enjoyed seeing these, keep them coming!
Cheers,
Lance

[uncletony]

Pretty cool model box art site here

[rhallinger]

Hey Lance, I had a paper route to support my modeling habit as well, way back in 1969.  My route took me and my bicycle all over our small town, and just happened to go right past the LHS near the end.  On collection day my cut was always spent on the way home!  All of the old Aurora kits, and then those amazing Monogram 1/48 beauties.  .  Delivered the ersatz Philadephia Evening Bulletin for three years.  Of course, back then I pretty much just glued them together, applied gloss Testors or Pactra paint in the closest approximate shade I could find with a brush, and slapped on the decals!  Ahhh, what great fun!

Cheers,

Bob