Mike Trim's Airfix Paintings

After mentioning Airfix's re-release of the Angel Interceptor kit from Gerry Anderson's Captain Scarlet And the Mysterons TV series, we have another Airfix/Captain Scarlet cross-over to report but this time it is one of the behind the scenes team.

Mike Trim joined the AP Films model shop in 1964 working as a model maker on Stingray and would continue on with the company through the Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet, Joe 90 and The Secret Service puppet series as well as the live action UFO plus the company's three feature films, Thunderbirds Are Go!, Thunderbird 6 and Doppleganger. He rose to be the assistant to the Anderson's Oscar winning special effects director Derek Meddings designing many of the familiar vehicles from the various series.

Mike then went on to design and paint the illustrations for the concept album Jeff Wayne's Musical Version Of The War Of The Worlds and work as an illustrator of book covers. His story is told in the beautifully illustrated The Future Was FAB: The Art Of Mike Trim published by Hermes Press in 2006.

Since then Mike has been painting illustrations for Airfix when the company was revitalised after its takeover by Hornby. Mike's Airfix box art covers a wide range of subjects from warships like HMS Iron Duke from the Battle of Jutland in 1916 the RAF's WWII Wellington bomber. It is nicely appropriate that the designer and model maker of so many science fiction vehicles in the 1960s also provided Airfix with new paintings of the 1960s era Apollo-Saturn V moon rocket and Apollo Lunar Module.

There are more of Mike Trim's Airfix illustrations on his blog and much more on his work in general on his website.