Ukrainian Mania - The digital ‘Flanker’ - time to call it done, I think.

[geedubelyer]

You're doing a splendid job of this one Stokey Pete

This most recent update reminds me, what's the clearance like between the HUD frame and the windshield bow? I seem to remember it being quite tight. Might be something to watch for. 

Keep up the stellar work. 

[Stokey Pete]

11 hours ago, geedubelyer said:

You're doing a splendid job of this one Stokey Pete

This most recent update reminds me, what's the clearance like between the HUD frame and the windshield bow? I seem to remember it being quite tight. Might be something to watch for. 

Keep up the stellar work. 

That’s gonna be a conundrum to deal with at the end. Dry fits had anticipated said problem, so I didn’t fit the HUD glass parts, and only glued it in with white pva glue vs ca. I’ll probably end up lifting it out and trimming a mm here and there from the framework should it prove troublesome. 

[Stokey Pete]

A bit of a resurrection for this monster after I’ve finished off building a couple of quickies (quick for me anyway).

I’ve recently decided that I no longer want to build kits with gear down. I’m enjoying the inflight look. Mrs stokeypete loves it too because it means more builds completed, and fewer boxes cluttering shelves.

So, I’ve done some serious sanding and dry fittings of the nose cone and intakes, along with finalising the fit of the canopy before I detail it up with bits. 
Wings were added to each half of the fuselage to avoid steps/gaps before I glued the two halves together. 
The nose fitting is about as perfect as I can get it, with a little filler to finish it off.

 

 

It’s quite the size, I’d forgotten just how big, until I put the Mirage next to it. 
 

 

[ROM]

what a beast!

 

wich paint did you use on the Mirage?

 

Romain

[Stokey Pete]

25 minutes ago, ROM said:

what a beast!

 

wich paint did you use on the Mirage?

 

Romain

Romain,

It was a total guess at a colour mix. I used Hataka Laquers Hellenic AF set which is pretty close to mirage colours. To this I added a touch of white and a drop of two of AK real colours FS 35109. 
It’s been deliberately, and sloppily sprayed with differing shades, because I’m going for a very dirty HAF jet. 

[Stokey Pete]

Well, there’s finally some paint going onto this beast. Getting to this point has been a bit of a mission. The Zacto intakes, as brilliant as they are, weren’t exactly the same size, and so I had to use a little creative licence. I couldn’t get the splitter plates to meet the surface satisfactorily, so I simply built them up with scrap plastic and cut slots into the fuselage for them to rest. Any gaps were filled to hide the cavities I could see. 
 

Next up was the horrific landing gear doors. With no option to build this kit wheels up, they simply didn’t fit without lots of dry fitting and careful sanding. Given that I will be displaying this largely with the top surface showing, I did the best I could so that it looked ‘good enough for me’. 
 

Surface prep’ was basic. I gave the plastic a polish with wet 12000 micromesh. Wiped every inch with rubbing alcohol and left to air dry. 

 

Paints come from MRP, their Ukraine SU-27 colours, MRP-043. They’re so nice to spray, at 8-10 psi. It takes a LOT of paint to cover this area, I used a full bottle to cover all underside surfaces. With another bottle on standby for any touch ups or paint based weathering I’ll do. 
 

Next up, I just had to test drive the masking set from Foxbot. They’re amazing! The paints were MRP-44/45/46. They look a bit gaudy and stark from the bottle but I’ll be knocking this back a fair bit when I start some bleaching later down the line. 
The paint is almost bulletproof, I’ve used no primer, allowed a 24 drying period between colour applications, the masks were in situ’ for 4 days in total. Removing them caused no paint lifting of an sort.

 

Now the real fun begins. I’m onto the top surface paintwork. The finish line is drawing to the horizon. 

[Horrido109]

Stunning build Pete!

 

Will be following with interest.

 

Victor

[Alex]

Love that pixel camo.  I’ve been wanting to try a Ukrainian machine like this for a while now...

[themongoose]

That is some awesome looking paint on that stabilator!

[Stokey Pete]

The result of 3 hours of careful airbrushing and masking. One very minor paint peel and  subsequent repair. And this is all I have to show for it . 
The F-15 wing/paint mule gives another sense of scale. 

I fear this will test my patience and skill to the limits. 

[Stokey Pete]

Hello from a cross eyed Stokey.

This represents pretty much a whole days work. The stress involved in positioning the masks correctly, getting the paint on sufficiently thin but with correct coverage, and the painfully slow/careful peeling process has left me drained after so small an area. 

 

To reduce the risk of paint lift, I cut masks for the grey panels from Oramask before I even put any paint on the tails. So any scalplel cuts were into plastic, vs cutting the surface of the paint. 
Worked out pretty well I’d say. 
 

If one stares at the camo’ for long enough, you begin to see shapes that aren’t there in reality. 

[Landrotten Highlander]

seems like you are getting plenty of practice for the Viggen camo scheme.

Great work, by the way.

[Stokey Pete]

6 minutes ago, Landrotten Highlander said:

seems like you are getting plenty of practice for the Viggen camo scheme.

Great work, by the way.

Thanks.

I suspect the Viggen will be much easier than this to do. Those masks are a tad more flexible. 
The Foxbot stuff is so delicate, have to be super careful when peeling it from is backing. 

[Stokey Pete]

Wow! That was a bit stressful.

So I made a start on the topside camouflage... 

I deliberately left the nose unpainted so I has somewhere to hold onto the beast. 

 

I took a bold decision and decided against priming. I knew that MRP paint would require a few coats to cover sufficiently, and I didn’t want to soften the detail further by adding layers of primer. The downside to that risk was paint peeling when I removed the masks. A risk I am happy with. I have a plan for the repairs, utilising discarded bits of mask and tape. My only mistake was thinking I could get away with painting the metals first. The majority of the peeling paint is from the metals area. 

My prediction came to pass. I now have a few areas to fix, and some tiny spots of overspray to fix. All of which will be done with a slightly different shade of base colours, to represent mid-service touch ups. I did no pre-shading, as I plan to weather this using post shades, washes, and multi layered oil paint filtering after I’ve applied decals. 

[Stokey Pete]

Speaking of the decals...

 

They come courtesy of Foxbot. Paintwork has been wet polished with a 12000 Micromesh cloth. This eliminates  the need for a gloss coat. I’ve used Mr Mark setter, followed by softer. They conform to panel lines really nicely, are very thin with very little excess carrier film. So far, I’ve experienced no slivering either. 
 

For now, it’s going back onto the shelf to allow paint to cure fully, and to give my mind a rest. That’s been fully 3 days work in getting the flanker to where it is now, and imagine there’ll be another couple of days work with the paint repairs.