AiP – Adventures in Plastic – have announced the upcoming release of an HMS Belfast model kit, featuring box art by Thunderbirds artist Graham Bleathman.
AIP is a brand owned by Bachmann’s, offering a range of licensed and non-licensed plastic construction kits, including rebranded versions of the Japanese Gerry Anderson kits, released a few years back.
The 1:350 HMS Belfast kit is out early next year, and already available to preorder from a variety of dealers.
The commission, which has had a long gestation period, isn’t Graham’s first model kit box art cover – he created a Thunderbirds FAB 1 illustration for an Amerang reissue of an Imai kit, and almost got to do more Anderson kit box art in more recent years – but hopefully it isn’t his last.
The HMS Belfast is a 1942 Royal Navy Cruiser, an improved Southampton-class cruiser, ordered from Harland & Wolff in 1936, laid down in December that year, and launched on St. Patrick’s Day 1938. Commissioned into the Royal Navy on 5 August 1939, the ship played key roles in major conflicts and peacekeeping over 24 years of service. Shortly after joining the fleet, HMS Belfast struck a German magnetic mine in November 1939, which caused significant damage, keeping it out of service for three years.
Rejoining the fleet in 1942 as the Royal Navy’s largest cruiser, HMS Belfast helped protect Arctic convoys to Russia and participated in the sinking of the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst in 1943. In 1944, as flagship of Bombardment Force E, she supported the D-Day landings.
After World War Two, HMS Belfast saw action in the Korean War from 1950 to 1952, before being decommissioned in 1963, ending her active career. Saved from scrapping by a preservation campaign led by Rear-Admiral Sir Morgan Morgan-Giles, the ship was turned into a museum ship and opened to the public on 21st October 1971. Moored on the River Thames, she remains a part of the Imperial War Museum, as the last surviving vessel of its type.
Since 1994 HMS Belfast has worn Admiralty Disruptive Pattern Camouflage, representing the ship’s World War Two period from late 1942 to mid 1944. Colour references are provided in the kit painting guide.
Airfix first released its HMS Belfast model kit in 1973, the current box art by the legendary Roy Cross. Other kits are also available, including a Trumpeter release.
• Full details of the AIP HMS Belfast kit release here on the Bachmann website
• Follow Graham Bleathman on Facebook
Step on board this iconic London landmark. Navigate your way around the rooms of this floating city, climbing up and down ladders to visit all nine decks
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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