I make resin 3D models and have started to realise that the box art is probably one of the biggest factors that influence the choice of model. So who, in your opinion, nails it with the best box art, past and present?
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Wow,thatâs a tough one,the box art never influenced my purchase,I donât even pay attention to the box art.I did appreciate when Dragon used to put a lot of the actual kit parts and acessories on the bottom and sides of the box so you could see them,but the cover,never paid much attention.
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Ron Volstad Dragon models.
Then Tamiya or Hasegawa.
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As primarily an aircraft builder, for the past Iâll go with Revell 1/32 or any of the old Monogram kits that came in the baby blue boxes or their big bombers.
For modern releases, I canât really choose just one here either. Tamiya, ICM, Eduard all come to mind.
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Yer love all those 
No I never gave it much thought but Iâm running an Etsy 3D model shop and came to realise that the initial photo/image makes a massive difference to who clicks or not. Iâm trying to make some artwork in this style using AI as I cannot draw freehand at all. For instance this is what iâm tinkering with at the moment using gemini AI for the Fat Man atomic bomb iâm making.
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It does make sense to have a nice actual picture of what your trying to sell
As much as itâs more practical to have a built up kit on the box, Iâm an absolute sucker for drama like Roy Crossâs vintage Airfix stuff.
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All great box art, back in the days of my youth I used to keep the box tops as the art was great and I thought as a Kidd frame worthyâŚ
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The B-29âs that were chosen to carry and deliver the A bomb if my memory serves were specially modified. I will have to check but I believe the bomb bay door were differentâŚ
THe plane that carried the 'âThin manâ had one long bay door, âFat manâ had standard doors and modified internal structure in the bomb bay.
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Iâm a sucker for the James Bama 60s monster artwork for Aurora, even though the kits didnât look anything like the box art!
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Can I nominate this abortion as the worst? As if getting the tankâs proportions completely wrong on Airfixâs vintage classic Panther wasnât enough, they also had to put the Panther in North Africa (where it never served) while committing some war crimes by destroying a British ambulanceâŚ
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Wow, box art. I havenât given that much thought since I was around 15 (Iâll be 66 in a few more days).
I loved the artwork on old Revell Ship and Plane models. Monogram also had a lot of cool art for their Plane models. Mini-Craft/Hasegawa also really pulled out the stops on a lot of their 1/72 scale armor/infantry and aircraft. I truly loved building armor, aircraft and having infantry to the same scale and 1/72nd was âITâ for me for a very long time.
As a difference, Tamiya always had a very good looking art image of what was in their boxes and always plastered over a white background like a cutout that made them âpopâ without any of the âwowâ background that other box art had. Even so, it was definitely eye-catching.
Lindberg, back in itâs day, seemed to do a decent job with their ship models box art, but their aircraft (both of which had the worst overall âfitâ for their actual models) was âmeh.â
The ones I recall with the most fondness, however, were those Revell ship models box art. Some of those were just fantastic. They honestly conveyed that âgrand sweepâ with the backgrounds, even on open ocean.
Today? I would still love good box art, however, I am with what someone said above â give me a good set of images of whatâs actually IN the box, please. Better yet, like some of airfixâ old infantry sets, give me a âwindowâ on the box and let me SEE. If I could open a box and look at the details of the model, THAT would be the best way to âsellâ me on it.
Granted I recognize the reluctance on the manufacturers to provide such easy access to the customer, a small âwindowâ section would be nice and certainly isnât a manufacturing/packaging issue as it might once have been.
The B-29s were modified, but not in respects to the bomb bay doors. Here is a photo of Little Boy being loaded into Enola Gay on the day before the strike.
As you can see, the bomb bay doors are the standard B-29 doors. The same goes for Bockâs Car. The biggest noticeable exterior difference was that all of the remote gun turrets and associated fire control blisters were removed. Only the tail guns were retained on the âSilverplateâ modified B-29s. All other modifications were internal.
This is Enola Gay returning after dropping the bomb.
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been a very long time since I even thought about those silver birdsâŚ
The initial hand-revisions done at Wright Field handled the doors by replacing the standard four individual 12-foot doors with two long 27-foot doors. However, because the structural change caused unexpected aerodynamic stressâdamaging the bay doors during early test flights at Muroc Fieldâand because the weapons program pivoted away from the elongated âThin Manâ to the much shorter âLittle Boyâ and âFat Manâ designs, the airframeâs configuration changed.
Once the longer weapon was abandoned, 42-6259 was returned to its original two-bomb-bay layout. What you are seeing in the definitive historical photos is either:
- The aircraft after it was re-modified back to the standard two-bay, four-door configuration to test the shorter atomic shapes.
- The standard B-29 setup that all subsequent operational Silverplate bombers (like the Enola Gay) used, as they never required the single-bay modification and retained the traditional dual-bay look from the outside.
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Yes, I did think the bomb bay doors donât look right and the bomb is slightly too big. Itâs the AI, you have to get the prompt just right or it will interpret things itself. Itâs a first attempt so Iâll come back when iâve got it right.
Yes, that looks terrible
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Thank, thatâs useful info. iâm definitely going to have a âwhat you getâ photo on all my models showing the actual components after 3D printing. I think youâre totally correct on the Tamiya art, it really pops with the almost photo realistic image, especially on a white background.
Yes and I do take photos of the finished models, close ups etc but the first photo is the one that âstops the scrollâ and gets them to click on your models.
