Fantasy box for Matchbox 1/72 Microjet BD-5

In 2010, I saw some great 'fantasy box top' examples on modeling forums. I wanted to give it a try too, since I was proficient in CorelDraw. But soon after starting, I realised that it wouldn't be too difficult to do a full fantasy box. And that was something I hadn't seen before, making it even more interesting. In our modeling club, IPMS-The Netherlands regio Zuid-Holland, we have an avid Matchbox collector, and I thought I could prank him with a fantasy Matchbox kit.

Fantasy box tops

Here are just some examples of the great fantasy box tops that I saw on the internet. I don't know exactly why I like the theme so much, it's probably the great love for the hobby.

Fantasy box top design

My initial plan for the fantasy box top was to use the LS BD-5J box art for a fictitious Matchbox box top. The drawing style was roughly identical to the typical Matchbox box top art: bold, colourful, striking.

I was very lucky to find a 'clean' version of the LS box art, on the ARII reissue. I scanned it for my fantasy box top.

This was the fantasy box top that resulted - it wasn't a fantasy box yet. I used various elements that actually didn't fit together. Matchbox box tops never had the brand logo and type designation in the left lower corner, it's always the upper left corner. But I thought I could get away with that :-)

Fantasy box design

To expand to a full fantasy box, I had to scan all elements of a standard Matchbox box, like this element that's on all four sides. Next is finding the correct fonts for the lettering, and drawing the simple geometric shapes. Matching the colours is another task, that's not made easier by outsourced printing. The two purples required several prints to get right. The BD-5 is a tiny aircraft and model, therefore it certainly would have been part of the Purple Range, in the smallest boxes, with plastic in two colours. Purple range

Here's my CorelDraw version of it. I see now that I picked the wrong colour for the lower text.

From this nice collection photo, I learned that the 'trim lines' had numerous colours. I couldn't find a logic in them, and I picked medium blue in the end.

Here's the completed artwork in CorelDraw. Working with the inverted parts for the back and one long side panel was a drag, as was the 90 degree rotated parts. I think this flat box layout has a charm of itself, and I might put a print in a frame, and put in on the wall as art.

Fantasy box

Fast forward to the end result. I may have overdone the crunching and dirtying a bit, but some old Matchbox boxes do look like this.

The back side, with two nice paint schemes and of course the transparent window to check the contents. I put parts from a Revell (ex Matchbox) T-2 Buckeye in the box, after painting the grey runners red and yellow.

A close-up view of the window and the plastic parts. I ripped one corner of the window as part of the ageing, but may have overdone it a bit. Matchbox boxes are natural cardboard coloured on the inside, but my printed light cardboard wasn't. I painted it a light tan colour, but looking back it wasn't necessary. I thought that colour would be visible through the window, but the parts block the view through the window.

I knew that the Matchbox tape yellowed quickly, so I painted mine with a dark yellow.

I used a photo to draw the typical drawing that shows the plastic colours used for this specific kit.

Prank #1

I had made this fantasy box with one primary victim in mind: Reinhold Bogaard, our resident Matchbox collector, with a large Matchbox.org website. During a club meeting, one of the members was selling maybe 30 kits, and I asked him whether I could add my model to the stacks, hoping that Reinhold would spot it. And he did, with me and a few informed club members watching. He was audibly wondering what the hell he was holding in his hands :-) We did not make him suffer for long though, we couldn't compose ourselves much longer. He later told me that one the first checks he did was the yellowed tape, but I had taken care of that.

Prank #2

On the model collectors forum Model Kit Collecting / Airfix Collecting that I am a member of, there was a tradition of doing April 1st jokes. In 2011, I joined in, with story of having started a Matchbox collection by buying five kits online, and sharing a few photos of that, shown below. The contribution was appreciated :-)

Prank #3

In 2011, our modeling club, IPMS-The Netherlands regio Zuid-Holland, started doing thematic club displays at the yearly Euro Scale Modeling events. The first theme was 'Old models', with lots of old models and old boxes, and turned out really nice. Unfortunately no photos were made. I could not resist adding my fantasy box to the display, as an easter egg. I was busy checking out the show all day long, so I did not witness the response of the audience. But club members told be that one visitor got really excited when he spotted the BD-5 fantasy box. Unfortunately he spoke no other language than his native East-European language, so the club members could not explain that is was a fantasy box..

A spin-off

I cannot resist showing a spin-off of some sorts. My work on the fantasy box had increased my appreciation of the Matchbox brand. And that led to the idea to do a club table showing the complete Matchbox range, using Reinhold Bogaard's box collection (of Matchbox.org fame), combined with Leo Ripken's large collection of Matchbox models in their natural colours. Shown here is the result after two years of preparations, at the 2016 edition of Euro Scale Modeling. Each range was presented in full, on its own panel, with models from that range on the table. I tried to arrange an original injection mould from Revell, talking to Uli Taubert the year before. The mass of such a mould was one of the reasons why it did not happen.

It was great fun to see nearly every visitor pointing out the boxes that he had built in their youth. I was of course tempted to add my 'Microjet BD-5' as an easter egg, but I did not do it. A full report about this Matchbox display, in Dutch, can be found here: Regiotafel Zuid-Holland op de ESM 2016