Veteran East Coast painter, sculptor, educator, and miniatures enthusiast Bill Merklein is a major inspiration to many in the miniatures world, and a great raconteur. (You can hear a chat with him on the Small Subjects podcast here and see a small sampling of his work on the pod’s blog here.) He completed one box diorama in the 1970s, “The Legend of Tam O’Shanty,” and after he was honored as a Grand Master at the MFCA show in 2026, he shared the only existing photos of it below.