Roy Cross (born 23 April 1924; London, UK)
Roy Cross RSMA, GAvA is a British artist and aviation journalist best known as the painter of artwork used on Airfix kits from the 1960s.

Born in Southwark, London and mainly self-taught, he learned his craft at the Camberwell School of Art and as a technical illustrator for training manuals for Fairey Aviation during the second world war. He progressed from there to producing advertising art for the aircraft industry and other companies. He illustrated for The Aeroplane and the Eagle comic.

In 1952 he joined the Society of Aviation Artists, but it is for his work at Airfix which he is best known. He started in 1964 with box art for Airfix's Do 217 and his last work for them was the box art for the German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen (1974). He went into marine paintings.

Roy Cross's interest in marine art began when accompanying his father on walks around the London docks, sketching the boats he had seen when returning home. Aged 15, he began to work for a Thameside shipping office. Here he saw Thames barges and the last of the sailing coasters, and thus in the 1930s was born his lasting love of sea and ships.

After training at the St. Martins School of Fine Art, Roy Cross's artistic career became established as an illustrator in numerous fields for journals and books. During the Second World War he illustrated air force maintenance books and pilots’ manuals, as well as publications such as 'Aeroplane' and 'Aviation Week'. His detailed drawing of the Gloster Meteor, Britain's first service jet fighter, took him eight weeks to create, was a yard in length, and became acknowledged as a masterpiece of this specialised branch of technical illustration. In addition he exhibited his work at the Society of Aviation Artists, of which he is also a member.

After the war, Roy Cross produced illustrations for the tops of the Airfix model boxes which are remembered by generations of children today. Sadly, much of his Airfix artwork was destroyed but the lids of many millions of boxes remain.

However, as an illustrator, he felt restricted by the limiting factors of commercial art and longed for greater freedom of expression.

He decided thus to concentrate primarily upon marine painting and he was immediately successful. Elected a Member of the Royal Society of Marine Artists in 1977, his art covers clipper ships to Mississippi steamboats, warships to commercial steam vessels and Royal Yachts to Americas Cup contenders. The combination of research, the practical application of this knowledge and the love of his subjects has its rewards, as Roy Cross is considered by many to be the one of the most accurate painters of historical marine vessels of all time.

In 2010 Roy was invited to a garden party at Buckingham Palace in view of his "outstanding services to art..."

Roy Cross's paintings are in the collections of: The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, The Constitution Museum Foundation, Boston; The Peabody Museum, Salem MA, and in private collections worldwide.

He was interviewed by James May in James May's Top Toys, discussing the changing tastes in box art and the airbrushing out of bombs and explosions from his pictures.