1:72 HMS Ark Royal 1941 - Base - Acrylic 3 mm (280 x 180 mm) (170 g)

The HMS Ark Royal 1941 base in 1:72 scale

A printed scenic area is laid under a finished model and gives it a setting. Here it is the deck of a British aircraft carrier in the state matching the year given in the name. It is not a kit in itself and nothing is assembled on it. A displayed piece thus gains a setting without your having to build a whole diorama.

The motif of the deck surface

The deck surface of a carrier has its own artwork, wear and guide markings. It is exactly these elements that set a displayed model apart from a machine stood on a bare table and that tell the viewer at once where the aircraft took off from. The area serves the same purpose in photography, where it unifies the background of a whole series of shots.

The real subject

The Ark Royal was one of the British aircraft carriers of the end of the 1930s and her aircraft went down in the history of the naval war in the Atlantic. It was from her deck that the machines took off which in May 1941 took part in the pursuit of the German battleship Bismarck. She herself was lost in November of the same year in the Mediterranean.

Where the base will serve

• In a cabinet as a base under one model.
• In photography as a neutral but thematically exact background.
• At a show, where a presentation has to be prepared quickly.
• As the first step toward a larger scene, which figures will follow on from.
• Under a model that is often moved between cabinets.

You stand the finished machine on the area yourself; the base is a scenic ground, nothing more.