Mistral

Good grief but that is some incredible work !!!!

Thanks Red Dog

Thanks Sean. Praise indeed coming from yourself as an artist and fine modeller. I appreciate

Thanks Alain. Thank goodness the Japanese WWII paint standards committee in 1939 decided that their paint would be useful 30 years after the war for SAAF colour schemes and that Tamiya faithfully replicated this as XF-11 . Seriously though, I've done so much looking at pictures of SAAF Mirages and this is the best colour match I can come up with. It does vary a lot depending on artificial light vs. shade vs. direct light. And the cell phone camera is not the best. Here are two additional photos taken with two Canon cameras (G9X and 50D) in shade - colours uncorrected, but see how they vary depending on camera. Both taken in RAW. I used the blue background as neutral (this is what they do at model shows to provide a nice viewing environment) and you can see from the printed photos that the dark green is almost darker with an olive drab tint. However, look at the colour of the buff - it's almost pink in the one image - so can I rely on the printing quality of these two images ??? As I said, looking at an array of photos and the CZ at the war museum in Johannesburg, these colour mixes I used are good to go. This shows it nicely :

I'm really happy with the colours - they look (to me) to be spot on. Mixes for those of you interested are : a) Underside blue - ModelMaster Russian Topside Blue - nice match out of the bottle b) Buff - Tamiya enamels - mix 10 parts XF-59 Desert Yellow + 5 parts X-6 Orange + 3 parts X-2 white. White content can be varied if you want it lighter or darker for scale effect. c) Green - Tamiya XF-11 Japanese Navy green - again, a great match out of the bottle.

I missed these two photos - here she is with her friend, the IIICZ : And whilst drying of the first paint coat in the lovely African sun with the cat guarding it from Hadeda poop .... Samsung cell phone camera really battling with colour saturation

Then the green paint was layered in making sure that the areas where the flexible tape was lifting were continually pushed down - looks like frightful mess at this stage... And now for my most favourite part of any build - removing all those hours worth of masking in the matter of 5 minutes to unveil, hopefully, a good paint job... Half way there : And just for Alain...et voila !!! All that is missing in terms of paint are the orange and blue rudder stripes and the black anti-glare panel on the nose :

Note also that the upper camouflage wraps around to the underside wing leading edges. First colour is the buff and per Nick's earlier comments, this has quite an orange hue - unfortunately the artificial light messes with the cell phone colour saturation.. but you get the idea : Once the buff has been left to dry for 24 hours, it's time for masking. This is the early SAAF hard edge camouflage - no feathering here - so the best tool for the job is the Tamiya 2mm wide flexible masking tape. I wish they'd bring this out in 1mm width which will make it even easier to follow those tight curves. In places, the tape is just not flexible enough and must be sliced and pushed down to prevent any of the green paint from bleeding through : Standard masking tape to fill in the centre sections and then Prestic (our version of Blutac) worms used to seal off the gaps between the flexible tape and the masking tape. This was a 2 hour job and is not a very exciting part of the build...

And then the marathon job of painting the upper surfaces. Lower surfaces masked off : Windshield and cockpit masked : The part which required the most time to mask were the interiors of the intakes. The camouflage colour follows through into the inside leading edges and the "mice" - fiddly masking took 30 minutes. Reference photos tacked to the cupboard for easy viewing and off we go...

Right then, more progress. I have beaten the windshield into submission with Tamiya white putty - took a number of layers to get the result I wanted. Nicely faired in : I then rescribed the windshield frame lines using a Tamiya razor saw dragged along a piece of dymo tape as a template. Works like a bomb and doesn't shatter the putty like a normal scriber would - thanks Mr. Lee for the advice on this neat little trick. I also rescribed the nose cone panel line which got a bit clogged up with putty and sanding residue. Riveting added to canopy frames : The kit pitot probes were hollowed out at the front and then glued in place :

Here are the rocket pods painted and weathered. They looked rather dirty behind the rocket exhaust port. Decals are from the Italeri boxing :

Next step is one I was not looking forward to - trimming and working with the vac form canopy. The vac form parts are supplied by ScaleWorx as a single section, the modeller having to separate the windshield from the canopy and then trim to fit. The vac form parts are nice and thin and clear. They are also tolerant of the abuse taken when manhandling them in the process of removing excess material. I used a dremmel tool with a small sanding bit. Way better than trying to score and cut with a sharp knife. Just keep the speed to medium and work slowly without too much pressure. Loose fit : I added some structural detail to the insides of the windshield frames using Evergreen plastic strip : Added some riveting on the frames : Masking using Tamiya tape - black base coat applied to remove translucency : Next step - glue the thing into place.....

Thanks David Some progress on painting - interiors of main undercarriage bays is assumed to be aluminium / silver. I used Tamiya LP-38 flat aluminium lacquer paint and weathered using MiG-1008 dark wash. Before I apply the weathering, I seal the base coat with Tamiya X-22 gloss acrylic varnish which prevents the oil based wash from eating the base coat. I like this MiG stuff as it provides an oily finish which, for aircraft, is realistic. Once completed, a final coat of X-22 is applied to seal everything in. Data placards care of AirScale decal sheet. Then for the undersurface colour. As per Nick's input above, the R2Z and D2Z Mirages supplied by Dassault were painted in France using French colours. As it would seem the underside blue used by Dassault is a bluer shade that used to paint the BZ/CZ/DZ/EZs in South Africa. These were delivered in natural metal with camouflage only applied later when operational requirements dictated (= Border War). So what blue to use - I've heard that Humbrol H25 is a good match but I'm not a fan of Humbrol. Luckily I had a bottle of ModelMaster Flanker "top-surface blue" which looked to me to be just correct based on photos of the real aircraft :

Very nice Tim. Can't have too many SAAF subjects

Thanks Nick. I'm gonna use my CZ colour formulation and add a touch of orange to the buff and possibly lighten the green. Photos are difficult to go by because of all the variables. However I'm of the school of thought that says if it looks right it is right. Not very scientific I know. I think what is important is how the two colours work together.

Yo, beautifull . Looks like a large deadly moth .

Nick, very pretty Mirage . I think the colours are really spot on. Man, Dassault designed the prettiest range of jet fighters.

Thanks Nick. Do you have colour references ?

Next, the wing mounted JL-100 combined fuel tank / rocket pods. These were carried by the SAAF Mirage IIID2Zs in both training and combat sorties up on the border. John has provided the correct pod diameter, nose configuration and inboard wing pylon - the kit's pylons are too short and too shallow. John also provides the little arming latch on the lower side as well as the rocket exhaust shrouds. These were located only over those exhausts adjacent to the outboard wing pylons. The purpose was to reduce the chance of flames from these exhausts impacting on the IR sensors on the outboard missiles. Once again, thanks for the clarification John I added small location pins using thin brass tube. These items are rather heavy and will need some positive location onto the wings : All treated to the standard Tamiya fine grey surface primer : Here you go.... Temporarily in place using Prestic :

Comparison with hanger friends - IIIRZ : With IIICZ - D2Z will be in a similar colour scheme - hard edge, semi gloss. Single seater looks so much chubbier :

So then, all resin parts glued in place and primed with Tamiya grey surface primer : Looking so much sleeker than my overweight feline companion in the background Just to add, the elevons and SAS control surfaces and their actuator failings went on beautifully this time with no filler required. Also note the blade antenna at the top of the vertical stabiliser, both sides.

Intake seams filled, panel lines rescribed where necessary, intake reinforcing strips added using 0.5mm thick plastic card - these are distinctive features at top and bottom of intakes near the leading edge : Nose with a plastic card backing ring added - there was a slight step as a result of me sanding back on the resin cockpit tub forward bulkhead too much. The pitot probe is loose fitted and is one of the Master masterpieces... : Nose glued in place using cyano glue. Filled with Tamiya light curing putty. Panel line later rescribed : Small intake added to lower starboard nose. Still to be added are the two pitot probes just ahead of the windshield. The circular "window" at the cockpit / nose junction is actually a plexiglass cover over a tube which runs right through the forward fuselage to the other side. In case of emergency (e.g. nose gear failure), a spigot can be attached through this tube to allow the nose to be lifted and the aircraft towed away - thanks John for clarifying this. I always wondered what it was for - I always assumed something to do with hydraulic pressure... : Lower fuselage just aft of nose gear bay - filled and primed. Small gun chamber intake added. These seem to have been variably fitted to the SAAF's Mirage III series. Some minor panel line rectification work to be done :

Ventral fairing added. Blended in with Perfect Plastic Putty and Tamiya light curing putty. Gap on exhaust halves filled with plastic card : Primed using Tamiya grey primer - some minor blemishes to be worked away : The spine section must be faired gently into the fuselage ahead of the vertical stabiliser. As noted before in this thread, the spine double curve in the kit parts must be reduced to a single continuous curve as has been done in the image below : Using "Dymo Tape" as guides to rescribe the two access hatches : The two dorsal intakes were added to suitably shaped thin plastic card bases as the raised detail on the kit was sanded away whilst filling up the mould mismatch steps which this kit suffers from. Resin spine has been treated to Tamiya grey primer - I use this straight out of the can and then smooth down using 8,000 grade micro mesh cloth : getting some shape....

Time to resurrect this build thread. I've been out of action for 2 weeks due to eye issues. But back at the bench now. Based on Nick's earlier question, John and I have been having some robust debate and head scratching concerning the intakes. I initially did the cut on the kit parts to take the new resin intakes too far back and had to stitch a whole bunch of plastic back on - you'll see what looks like a mess in the attached photos. I glued these in place and then we realised that they should be 3mm shorter than what I had. So John has remedied the resin intakes to provide for the correct length - these will be provided in the resin set. Mine are 3mm too long but by this stage I had invested too many hours filling, scribing, etc. to go back. In image below a couple of things need to be sorted : the vents just inboard of the gun troughs must be blanked and filled, the intake inner edges must be closed (this is corrected on the revised resin intakes), you can see the stitching with plastic card to sort out my ****-up on the intakes - more work than was necessary - what's the old saying ? Measure twice, cut once , panel lines to all be recruited once filling is complete.

Beautiful Nick . The camo colours really look good.