Osprey Publishing

"Displaying Your Model" - Osprey Modeling Series, #44

by  Richard Windrow, Consultant Editor Robert Oehler

Reviewed By  Keith Pruitt, IPMS #44770

MSRP: $19.95 US ISBN: 9781846034169 Website: www.ospreypublishing.com 80 pages, 211 color photographs, 1 small illustration, paperback After spending endless hours building an outstanding model, there is always the challenge of how to display it so that its best and most attractive features are prominently visible. Should it be on a base, in a vignette or diorama, or displayed all alone on a shelf? This book is the perfect source of inspiration to stimulate the flow of those creative ideas for making a nice model into a great display. The initial part of the book goes through the "Approaches and Choices" regarding what types of display might work best for the reader. It covers vignettes, dioramas, and boxed dioramas. Although it is a short section, it defines what makes up each style of display and what to consider in the modeling process. The second chapter covers the author's diorama, "Ozymandias", in which Windrow uses a casting of a human face, intended for a museum display, but which had cracked and was discarded. In the diorama, this mask became the face of a huge, ancient statue that had collapsed, and was being inspected by a pair of 1/48 Afrika Korps figures. The book goes on to cover vignettes of a Gothic Knight and a Safari Rally from 1971, before moving into Bases and Cases. It also includes a step-by-step construction of a several dioramas displayed in a Light Boxes. There is a section on Framed Displays, such as those used with "flats". The section covering False Perspective was fascinating, as it was a diorama of a Bronze Age scene, viewed through an observation slot, prepared for Lake Dwelling Museum at Unteruhldingen in Switzerland. The next chapter delved into Cutaway Models, which allow some of the inner workings to be seen in different views of the same scene. The last part of the book includes thirty pages of gallery photographs. This covers several artists, including Geoffrey Illsley, Chris Grove, Roy Hunt, Mike Taylor, Shep Paine, David Irving-James, John Burnham, Steve Zaloga, Ron Hendon, Spud Murphy, Spencer Pollard, David Maddox, and Haris Ali, as well as selections from Model X Magazine and winners from EuroMilitaire 2008. There is no doubt about the quality of the work depicted in this book. The photography is outstanding, and the models, vignettes, and dioramas are world-class. The subject matter varies dramatically, from a quiet 19th Century clockmaker to medieval times to World War II to the modern age. This book would be an excellent reference for the casual model builder that just wants to expand their capabilities in displays, or to the more advanced builder that wants to move into dioramas. I can highly recommend this book for scale modelers, of all skill levels, in any and all genres. The book truly has something for everyone. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Osprey Publishing, and to IPMS/USA, for this review sample.