MarioS

I`ll give it a few hours for the glue to dry justly and then the good pics... until then - enjoy some silhouettes. That beast is huuuge... i just don`t have more words right now...
 

 

 

 
Btw that transparent thing underneath is the top cover of the display case which is still not completed too... but kinda there...

Also, the last few of The Weathering MAGs that I've been waiting to come in from Europe have now arrived I'm only missing one waiting for the reprint.
 

 
 
And below are some of the more recent magazine & books that I've been collecting in the last few years
 
 

The reason why it is slightly shaking while taking these pics is because the amount of light at the front of the subject is not enough which causes the shutter speed to go slow to let in more light. By putting a good light source (sun) at the front of it. It will cause the shutter speed on a camera or on your phone to take the photo at a higher speed which should avoid the shakiness and also a more crisp photo.
 
I hope that helps Sorry if you already knew, just wanted to mention it just in case.
 
 
Looking forward to seeing some good photos of your build   
 
 

Milan,
 
The amount of detailing you've put in those nose bays is Amazing and the amount of work you've done to get to this stage, that is truly a love of modelling. Great work thanks for showing us all.  
 
 
 
 
 
Milan, Can I ask you when you take your next lot of photos by any chance can you put the light at the front of the subject or maybe take it outside on a really nice sunny day it will really make that model of yours stand out a lot more. The photos here have got too much white glare at the background that is washing your image subject away and making it grainier and out of focus.
 
 
 
 
Great Model Milan   

All the nose bays are done. Finally. Can`t believe, honestly... That`s the last and second biggest bay:
 

 
A quick walkaround with all the bays open + the radome
 

 

 

 

 

 

And a bit longer video too::
 

 
The nose section is basically ready for gluing to the fuselage....

Also, the last few of The Weathering MAGs that I've been waiting to come in from Europe have now arrived I'm only missing one waiting for the reprint.
 

 
 
And below are some of the more recent magazine & books that I've been collecting in the last few years
 
 

My F-35B's came in, only took 5 days (also got a F-35C not in the photo) got them locally cost me an extra 40 bucks (for the B's). But that's the way it is.
 
 

Some excellent references there, especially the Daco and Reid air stuff.

Have a look at the links below, it'll give you an idea what you may want to think about it. I think it's good, I haven't done anything with it in the box but I like it   
 
 
http://largescaleplanes.com/walkaround/wk.php?wid=185
 
 
https://imgur.com/a/cNPgR
 
 
Cheers

Also, the last few of The Weathering MAGs that I've been waiting to come in from Europe have now arrived I'm only missing one waiting for the reprint.
 

 
 
And below are some of the more recent magazine & books that I've been collecting in the last few years
 
 

My F-35B's came in, only took 5 days (also got a F-35C not in the photo) got them locally cost me an extra 40 bucks (for the B's). But that's the way it is.
 
 

Have a look at the links below, it'll give you an idea what you may want to think about it. I think it's good, I haven't done anything with it in the box but I like it   
 
 
http://largescaleplanes.com/walkaround/wk.php?wid=185
 
 
https://imgur.com/a/cNPgR
 
 
Cheers

Hi guys
I'd just spoke with my friend - owner of CWS and well we have some good news here
He makes an entire new cockpit for trumpeters kit, which is including: the cockpit itself, new canopy frame, the canopy itself/clear parts/ and of course parts which will resolved the problem with the shape of the upper part of the fuselage / just like Martin's photos with cutouts and the kit /
The releases coming this autumn /octomber, november/ of 2017
Cheers friends

July 19/17
 
 
Near the end of all my builds I find something that I wished I had changed or modified earlier.  In this build, it's the chaff and flare dispensers, which are not totally correct and hard to paint.  Searching around, after the fact of course, I find that there are some really nice ones made from PE brass and resin, although they can only be displayed in the “empty†situation, leaving square holes.  I would have, could have and should have installed some of these earlier, so now I'm doing a band-aide type of modification using some Eduard PE parts.
 
According to Jake's books and many different pics I can find of these dispensers, the flare dispensers are in a 2 X 3 configuration (6 total) and are reddish, while the chaff dispensers are in a 5 X 6 configuration (30 total) and are silver/white in color.  The kit has 4 dispensers on each side and they are all 4 X 5 (20 total), which is close to the chaff boxes for accuracy but miles away from the flare boxes.  I also found that there is almost always blanking cover plates on at least half of the boxes and the distribution of flare and chaff boxes is all over the map, with no real common pattern.  What to do?
 
There are PE blanking plates found in the Eduard F-15E kit, although you have to cut each one separately out of a 4 X 4 part, but no colored plates for the F-15 at all.  Using colored chaff and flare dispensers made for an F-18E, I cut out a 2 X 3 flare box that fit the kit parts, but the orientation of the flares are out by 90 degrees to the real deal.  No biggy.  For the chaff dispensers, I was able to cut out 3 X 4 parts that fit which is wrong, but the colors of both dispensers are pretty accurate and let's face it, these items are underneath and can only be seen clearly with a mirror if the model is displayed over one.  I found that the blanking plates are generic grey jet ones most of the time (not always), so I painted all of them F-15 light grey (FS 36251, which has a tinge of brown) to add some contrasting interest to the overall blue.  These look very colorful and unrealistic right now, but with some weathering soot applied at the end of the build, I think they will look pretty good later.
 
 

 
 
To prep the model for a gloss coat, in this case Tamiya X-22 acrylic, I used Mr. Laplos polishing cloths to smooth the paint finish further and remove any dust and other imperfections.  This makes the dark blue paint look even lighter with an uneven and flat finish.  Recall that I used a LOT of white to knock down the intensity of the blue (see post # 842 above), which was way too dark to begin with.  Did I go too far lightening the blue?.....
 
 

 
 
Of course not!  I learned the hard way many models before, that a gloss finish will make dark colors look much darker than before and even after a subsequent flat coat finish after decals, the lighter color never seems to come back to where it started.  Anticipating this would happen yet again, I made the dark blue at least 25% lighter than what I wanted for a final color, so that after a gloss coat, it looks like this……
 
 

 
 
Now a “walkaround†of the model as it stands right now.  I'm pretty happy with how those toned down rudder hinge bulges and raised rivets turned out with the new glossy reflection.
 
 

 
 

 
 
If you look close you can see a very little bit of "orange peel" to the gloss finish, but that will all disappear after a satin coat at the end of the build.  If you can't lay down decals successfully on this finish, something is very wrong.  At this stage you can fill panel line and rivet detail with the gloss coat, because the detail has been captured and sealed in.
 
 

 
 

 
 
I'm also really happy with how the nose cone turned out.  The kit part does not fit very well, so you need to do a lot of sanding and dry fitting to get it looking smooth to the front fuselage.  The scratch built front windshield vents and windscreen trim looks OK too.
 
 

 
 
The main gear wells will get some attention when I install the landing gear.  It looks like I need to fill a small divot on the near stabilator, even though it's on the bottom.
 
 

 
 
The top of intake PE mesh remains clog free.
 
 

 
 
Now another tip:
 
 
How I sprayed Tamiya X-22
 
 
1)  Thin X-22 with (Edit) 50% Tamiya lacquer thinner (yellow cap).
 
2)  Use an airbrush with a relatively large needle and a bit higher flowing pressure than you usually use with paint.  I used an Iwata airbrush with a 0.3mm needle and my flowing pressure was about 18 psi.  I tried my 0.18mm Iwata and it kept drying at the tip, causing sputtering.  The 0.3mm needle didn't sputter once.
 
3)  Start at an end close to you and spray away from you, getting the surface nice and wet before moving forward.  This reduces spray “dust†of dried X-22 ahead of the airbrush, which doesn't get a chance to dry as it gets wet again as you move the airbrush forward.
 
4)  Spray parallel to wing roots and other 90 degree obstructions, again to avoid air turbulence and dried dust.
 
5)  If you get dust and other crap on the model while spraying- and you WILL!- keep moving and leave the dust alone.  You can sand it out later.
 
6)  Always spray on a horizontal surface if possible.  This means holding the model at 90 degrees when spraying the sides.
 
7)  Spray one side, then turn the model to spray the top or bottom.  Let it dry for at least ½ hour, then spray the other 2 sides.
 
8)  After the X-22 has dried for one day, sand out the imperfections with #1,000- #1,500 sandpaper or polishing cloths, clean up the dust, then spray the entire model once more.
 
 
Although Future/Pledge (FP) can work great and I have used it successfully many times as a gloss coat, the X-22 is just plain easier to use.  It doesn't run, it dries much quicker and it dries to a much harder finish, allowing light sanding within an hour.  My only complaint with X-22 is that it is only sold in small bottles, so for a model this size you will need at least 2-3 of them.
 
Next up, Titanium rear panels!
 
 
Cheers,
Chuck

Yes very nice looking plane, too many schemes to choose from. As mentioned above those decals are available but if you are in favour of the Tiger head but don't like the digital camo scheme you can always wait for Trumpeter to bring out the MiG-29US and use the scheme below.
 
I hope to eventually buy two Trumpeter MiG-29 A's and maybe make one as a Polish Air Force and the other one as Slovak Air Force One. Only problem there is no 32 scale sheet for it!  hopefully some decal company might come to the rescue and design one for both the MiG-29AS & the MiG-29UBS in 32 scale…
 
 
But if that doesn't happen I'm quite happy to give it a shot myself, what have I got to lose (a week on the computer) I mean it's not that hard I'm more at ease trying to scratch design a decal sheet then scratch build and an entire 32 scale plane, so far I've collected roughly 90 photos of the MiG-29AS 0921 as reference as far as the camo goes I can cut it out on my old Roland plotter and with the images (tiger head), well hopefully  if someone could please steer me in the right direction to some reputable company that does one off decal prints…
 

Thanks for your response CaracalModels but that's disappointing to hear maybe somebody else might want to give it a shot.
 
But if all else fails, well if you if you can scratch build a model plane I'm sure you (I) can scratch build/design some decal sheet for the MiG-29AS 0921.
 
Where there's a will there's a way

Great looking shine you got there Jim, it's looking good

Ok, got a fix going on the horizontal tails. I ended up getting a bit frustrated with it so I moved to the vertical tails.
 
First order of business was to see whether I got the same gloss cancer on the vertical tails. So I did a corner of the tail - you can see (if you look closely) the difference between the polished front corner and the unpolished gloss on the rest. Same routine as before, I'll repost the process because I'm too lazy to go through the pain of reposting my Photobucket images. Start with 1200 grit wet sanding (I use saliva, not water ... some will call me disgusting, but it seems to have a viscosity that works better):
 

 
Then 2000 grit:
 

 
Then Tamiya compound, red, blue and white. Each gets three applications before moving to the next.
 

 
 

 

 

 
Looks ok to me! So I polished up the rest of the tail. This took about an hour.
 

 
You'll note that I lost a bit of blue on the fence near the top of the tail; that won't be hard to fix. I also lost a chip of red near the top rear corner. Pleasingly, I have been able to retain most of the surface detail, despite far too many layers of paint.
 
So then it was a big deep breath, and on to take my chances with the outside of the tail. Same process, and an hour later, here are the results on both sides (this time with Tamiya modelling wax applied as a finish):
 

 

 
Not too unhappy with that (although I've lost a lot of surface detail on the outside ... not the end of the world, as I decided against a wash, but still a little disappointing). Now I just have to figure out how to flat-coat the slime light without masking and ruining the gloss.
 
Thanks all for following on.
 
Cheers
Jim

Very amazing detailed painting their Chuck as everyone's mentioned above.
 
I've been watching these emails come in my phone all day, I've got about 20 or so just from “Kicked Up A Notch†and have just had a chance now to have a look at my computer… nice.
 
 
Plus, as you've mentioned the detail under that paintwork does stand out especially now with those bigger photos you've showing.
 
 
Thanks,

With some pre-planning and sanding, the gun door fits very well.
 
 

 
 
I placed some fine brass mesh on the inside of the vent before painting.
 
 

 
 
Although I can now finally see the light at the end of the tunnel of this project, I still have a lot of work to do.  Next up will be the painting of the rear titanium panels, the wing pylons and other stuff that hangs underneath and of course decaling.  I just noticed that I now have 56 followers, so thank you for your continued interest- and patience- in this long, long build!
 
 
Cheers,
Chuck

You stuff the model into the plastic bag and cut slits where you need to paint, further masking off the edges of the bag.  Seal the bag carefully, otherwise you can create a wind tunnel within causing all sorts of overspray within the bag.
 
 

 
 
This shows the overspray on the outside of the bag-  where it belongs!
 
 

 
 
This painting process can take several different iterations to get all the small details painted properly.  I'll be doing another round when I paint the titanium panels at the rear later.
 
 

 
 
The Results!  I still have more details to paint like the flare and chaff dispensers, etc., but this shows how smooth the paint is before further sanding and gloss coat.  Some of the rivet detail was redone to bring it back, but about 90% of this fine detail is untouched.  The colors do not photograph very accurately, but to the naked eye they look very close to the real deal.  For instance, the dark blue looks lighter than it really should due to light reflection off the smooth surface.
 
 

 

 
 
Minute details still show through
 
 

 

 

 

 

Alright Already!  
 
July 10/17
 
Hi Guys,
 
Thank you all very much for your kind encouragement.
 
After about a month since my last update- and 15 months since I started this model, I have a big update today, with the majority of the camo-painting finished.  This took much longer than I anticipated, with at least 40-50 trips to my paint booth (I'm not kidding), mostly for touch-ups. Thankfully I have generated a pretty efficient routine of painting and air brush clean-up that can take as little as 5 minutes, otherwise this painting phase would be torture.
 
Before I start, as I have read about many times here in the last few days, I am also trying another photo hosting site other than Photobucket.  Like most of you, I have had many issues with PB over the years and I have stuck with it, mostly because I hate change and with a little fighting, I could achieve more or less what I wanted.  The maximum size of 1024 pixels across has been my biggest gripe since almost everyone has big monitors these days, but PB has been getting slower and slower over the years and I often lose what I have recently uploaded and I have to hunt around to find my pics.  What is really frustrating is that I have always been a paying customer in order to minimize pop-up ads, so I have a right to complain.  Apparently I'm one of the “lucky†ones since I was paying $30/yr, so my image hosting is safe until December, 2018, when they plan on jacking up my fees to $72/yr (Plus 50 Plan).  Not going to happen.   If PB worked OK I might consider it, but it is already inferior to the free sites, so why pay for crap?  Anyway, I'm trying “ImageShack†right now which costs about $40/yr, which has the look and feel of PB years ago when it worked properly, so let's see how it goes with up to 1,600 pixels wide, which is the size I always create after editing.  Yes, I tried “imgurâ€, which is free but I find clunky and “Smugmugâ€, which is a bit complicated and is meant more for pro photographers.
 
Here's a last minute item that is often missed:  Navigation lights.  I have found that most of the clear plastic lights that come with kits don't fit very well, which is likely why many finished models have clunky lights on them.  Nobody wants to sand a nicely painted wing to accommodate a last minute kit item like a light, so it's better to fit them now before painting.  With a sanding stick and some dry fitting, I got them to fit fairly well so that they will be easy drop-ins later.
 
 

 

 
 
Before I did any painting I did a little research on two key things: 
 
1.  What is the camo pattern exactly and how is it applied?
 
2.  What are the exact colors?
 
 
For #1, I have at least 200 pics of Aggressor Eagles, most of which I took myself.  I was surprised to find that the overall camo pattern is “standard†for all of them, with subtle changes to demarcation lines, especially on the vertical stabilizers.  For my subject, AF 80-0010, I was having some difficulty connecting the demarcation lines from pic to pic until I realized that this jet was re-painted at least once, so the camo pattern was different, depending on the year of the pic, much like the antennae top and bottom that changed over time.  I also found that the paint was clearly applied “free-handâ€, with lots of fuzz of overlapping paint and fairly choppy outlines.  Once I discovered this, I chose the paint patterns I liked the most, combined with a few personal tweaks that made painting a bit easier.
 
Number #2 was much more complicated.  The two key colors are FS 35109 for the dark blue, which Model Master makes (# 2031) and FS 35450 for the light blue, which MM does not make, nor does most of the other paint manufacturers.  Some decal instructions call for MM #2131, which is USSR Flanker Med. Blue, which is wrong with a greenish tinge, but it's a good start to mix from.  After a lot of trial and error and comparing my results to my pics of the real deal, I came up with the following formulae that I finally used on my model.  Note that I used a LOT of flat white, otherwise the colors were way too intense.  For reference, 4X and 3X means 4 parts of one color and 3 parts of another.  Also, the Grey is for the leading edges of the control surfaces and the fuel tanks, which is a standard modern F-15 color:
 
 
Radome         FS 36176         Dark F-15 Grey           2036   8X
                       FS 37925         Flat White                   2142   1X
 
Dark Blue       FS 35109         Blue                             2031   5X
                       FS 37925         Flat White                   2142   3X
 
Light Blue      (FS 35450)       Flanker Med. Blue       2131   6X
                       FS35183          Bright Blue                  2032   1X
                       FS37925          Flat White                   2142   4X
 
Grey               FS36251          Navy Agg. Grey          1794   8X
                       FS 37925         Flat White                   2142  1X
 
 
 
If you mix your colors like I did above, make sure to make extra paint, because you might not be able to match it later for touch-ups. 
 
Here's a few reference shots to show you how the jets are painted and what the various colors look like in real life.
 
 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
Now some pics of the painting procedure.  Please excuse the cluttered background which are parts of my small photo-booth that has worked very well so far for part assemblies under 12â€.  At 24â€, this Big Bird has grown out of its photographic nest!  Getting the white balance and colors correct was tricky too.
 
 
Since the demarcation lines are a bit fuzzy, I used the old poster putty trick to form the lines and allow the paint to be slightly dispersed along the boundaries.  First I sprayed the light blue, with no masking of the dark blue areas since overspray can be easily removed with solvent.
 
 

 
 
This was followed by the dark blue, where I did mask off the light blue to avoid overspray.   While some might spray the entire model light blue then just spray dark blue over the light blue where required, I wanted to avoid paint build up.  Each color took two coats of paint thinned more than normal, to lay down flat, wet and avoid “orange peel†lumping.
 
 

 
 
After many, many back and forth trips to the paint booth to fix demarcation lines, overspray and other imperfections, I used another old modeling trick to paint the details:  Kitchen trash bag masking.  After masking off the areas you want painted….
 
 

Ok, so when you say you've been setting up galleries I guess you're meaning you've got the main album as for example F-15 and then within that you got multiple albums for different categories for example 1 for your own photos and 1 for your build photos and 1 more for your reference photos that you're using on the forum is that what you can do?
  See with Imgur you can't do that you've got to have a different album for everything on the main page which becomes pretty busy and cluttered.  If U put everything there you could end up having hundreds of albums all on the main page

I have been setting up galleries within Imageshack all day. It's very easy.