Richard Stewart
Romsey, Hampshire, England
Richard writes, “The carrier
is Trumpeter’s 1/350 scale USS Essex,
which I have converted to the USS Hornet. It took me on and off around eight years to complete! The reason I
wanted to model the Hornet was that
she was the last of the early Essex
class to be modified. So, she had the later aircraft I wanted to depict in this
diorama, together with a British destroyer (White Ensign’s HMS Eskimo), as my father served in the Pacific theatre with the
Royal Navy during the final stages of the war. I built the air wing and ships’
armaments first. The planes all have rudimentary cockpits with some open
canopies.” Richard used Gold Medal Models decals and White Ensign
photoetched-metal parts and paints, applying the latter with a combination of
hand- and airbrush painting. Acrylic-gloss gel sculpted over a shaded gloss-blue
base provides the setting for a ship-to-ship transfer of rescued U.S. pilots,
Richard says.