Shep Paine dioramas

Shep Paine was the Van Gogh(add your favorite great painter) of the modeling world to me. The man that broke new ground and took it to the limits... The one other time I was so impressed by that type of great talent was when I had a friend in Jr. High School and we stopped by his house on the way to Little Leauge practice at Los Alamitos Naval Air Base, In the living room of his house were several oil painted pictures of NASA Artist Renderings of the space missions that were soon to be. His Dad was one of the guys that painted them for TVand sales presentations. This was way before the CG stuff you see today. Talk about a rivet counter, I have been a box art fan ever since. And yes sometime the boxart is better than the kit inside....Oh well still love it...

Does Shep still model at all any more?

What has he been doing lately?

Anybody, anybody?

I used to live in a southern Chicago suburb. We had Shep as a guest speaker at our local IPMS club once and be did a talk on figure painting and dioramas. He is indeed an artist. Most folks do not know it but he sculpted, molded, and cast most of his own figures for his dioramas. Does anyone know what he is doing now? Is he still alive? The last time I saw him was 30 years ago and he was old then. Maybe it was just that I was 30 years younger then!!! Anyways, Shep raised the bar on model building back then. When I hear (read) folks complaining about the older Monogram kits I think about Sheps work on those old kits. The kits deficiencies can be overcome with a little creativity. Food for thought!

Good point ranger.

To hell with the expensive aftermarket parts, put the creative mind to work.

 

Ditto on paines greatness - his articles in FSM on figure painting with oils led me to start expirimenting with them on all kinds of projects! to young to get the brochures in my kits, I only found out abut paine in a great, super well photographed article in a special FSM ran in "Great scale modeling 2001" Look it up - it includes 2 armor dioramas and the marauder factory (my favorite) as well as the classics -J

Man, that's like seeing a long lost friend. I looked over that B-17 diorama sheet that came with the kit so many times it just wore out. I loved how they put those sheets in the kits- wish I still had them. What great stuff.

I think it shows how good a quality Monogram was then. Nobody else puts that kind of value in their kits any more. Monogram boxed up some highly detailed kits, at a great price, and included some jaw dropping pics to inspire the builder.

I feel old. I miss those days.

I think I'll go watch a Speed Racer DVD......

Thanks for the photos.  Mr Paine's work is truly inspirational.

Darwin, O.F.

 

 

Any extras for sale?

Thanks!

O.M.

 

 

WOW! between this thread and the one i posted last week i hope we've given revell/monogram some food for thought great pic's  matt. i was given the original 1978 issue c-47 kit as a b-day gift from my wife in 2004 (i'm still kissing her feet on this one!) and it came with the dirorama flyer and a application to the ipms too!   once again, thanx   dave 

I just recently bought two Monogram kits from ebay; the Black Widow P-61 (1974 printed on the box) and the B-17G (1975 printed on the box).  Both kits are complete, though some of the parts have separated from their sprues, and they both have the original Shep Paine Diorama pamphlets and the B-17G has a mail-in IPMS membership form.  I think dues were $8.00 a year back then.  I was thinking about completing the form and mailing it to hear what they have to say. 

These are great kits and they bring back good memories.  They're sitting on my living room bookcase like a couple antiques.  They're almost as nice to display unassembled in the box as they are built.  But I'll get to'em someday. 

How could a person find out what kits had the Shep Paine diorama inserts, how many were there? 

Thanks,

Steve 

Wow! It's greeat to see they are still around and given their proper place with the company. At some point in my childhood modlemaking I started saving those Shep Paine flyers and stil have a few tucked away somewhere in my horde. I alwys loved the C-47 diorama as my favorite. His work was nothing less than spectacular.  Thanks for the pics and happy memories.