Philip Warren
Philip Warren is an English ship model maker best known for building a matchstick Maritime Fleet. His collection includes models of over 500 vessels and 1,000 aircraft, as well as of all the Royal Navy ships since 1945.
Life and work
Philip Warren was born in Dorset, England, and was a director of a stationery wholesale company before his retirement. He started building models of naval boats at the age of 17 due to a fascination with ships. His interest in warships came about due to going through childhood in World War 2.When he first began model making, he used balsa wood to make models. He switched to matchsticks because he found that material more suitable for static waterline warship models, and because matches were common. His models are hand-built and are made in 1/300th of the scale, using matchboxes, matchsticks, a razor blade, and glue. Completing his models requires him looking at photographs, drawings, and plans of real ships. His largest model is 1m long.
Models
Warren's earliest model was the Royal Navy's HMS Scorpion. Following its completion, he built a different destroyer, a battleship, a cruiser, and later an aircraft carrier. As the years passed, his attention to detail and accuracy improved, making models with many moving parts, including missile launchers, radars, gun turrets, swing wings, and helicopter rotors. His collection of models includes 500 vessels and 1000 aircraft from World War 2 battleships to nuclear-powered submarines and modern aircraft carriers.In his over 70 years of model making, he built one or more of each class of Royal Navy ships from 1945 to the present day, including 7 Leander class frigates. In addition, he has also built Commonwealth ships. Warren has constructed 60 US ships, including four supercarriers, two battleships, and various cruisers. Additionally, he built around 50 ships from various Navies of other nations.
Warren’s ships take him approximately 1,500 matches to build. and can take over a year to finish. Adam Aspinall from The Mirror states, “Each vessel is correct to the tiniest detail.” In 1989, Philip gave the United Kingdom's Prince Andrew a model of the frigate Campbeltown. Trend Hunter named Warren the “Hobby King of Hobbydom” due to having built models of all of Britain's warships since the end of the Second World War.