As a 15-year (!!!) member of Hyperscale, I've watched Rene's work develop over the years to the point that he must be considered one of the greatest craftsmen I've ever seen... his ideas are audacious, and he is utterly fearless in his efforts to realize his ideas, as you all must surely recognize from his beautiful Sangamon posted above.
But as awesome as it is, this is not Rene's masterwork.
In October, he completed what I regard as the single most ambitious diorama I have ever had the pleasure to see... he built the USS Missouri in 1/72 scale, entirely from scratch, in order to recreate the famous Kamikaze attack of an A6M5 Zero against her starboard hull on 11 April 1945, off the coast of Okinawa.
Words fail to describe how utterly amazing this is... I'll post a couple photos and a link to the thread describing the finished work, "Some Fought To Live - Some Fought To Die".
The original photo:
And Rene's scale rendition:
I would encourage EVERYONE viewing this thread to go see the other photos posted of this masterpiece, and remember this as you are looking at them: the ship is completely scratchbuilt.
http://www.network54.com/Forum/47751/message/1412610477/Warning+lots+of+pictures+long+post%2C+Some+fought+to+live%3B+some+fought+to+die.Regards,
Lynn