Trumpeter 1/32 Mig 3 "White 21"

[mywifehatesmodels]

1 hour ago, Jboldt007 said:

very interesting build. The pilot figure looks great - there is allot of good resin figures out there right now. The museum photos are. amazing too- I always think AMT-7 is shown as "too blue" in renderings but it really is a strong, sky blue colour....

 

I agree with you on the AMT-7. For the exterior of the plane, I will likely fade it a touch. I thought the same of the AKAN paint that I used on my IL-2M3. Very "deep", in my opinion.

 

John

[mywifehatesmodels]

So, here's where I'm at for today....

 

Most of the cockpit is painted. I actually went through a couple different versions, using a couple different paints, before I settled on what we see here. I didn't have a green paint for the floor that matched what I was seeing in photos. At least, not in an acrylic lacquer. I did, however, have an old bottle of Model Master enamel in "Euro Dark Green" that is really close. Unfortunately, this limited my normal oil wash/weathering process, but given that the pilot will be sitting on top of it, you won't be able to see 90% of it, anyway. As for the rest of the cockpit, I know that the colors are not correct for every item, but it got to the point that just getting it done was more important to me than stressing over colors, not to mention that this cockpit is a pretty mediocre representation of the real thing to start with. If I were doing this plane without a pilot, I would surely be using an aftermarket cockpit and/or scratchbuilding a bunch of stuff. The instrument panel, specifically, is another issue I have, but more on that in a bit.

 

Still plenty to do here, but this is where it sits, at the moment.

 

 

 

 

Here's a shot of the pilot after attaching the arms, fixing the seams and priming with MRP's black primer (sorry about the focus, but getting detail to show up with all this black was nearly impossible). 

 

 

 

Also, while things were drying in between painting sessions, I managed to get the wings together and all of the control surfaces/flaps attached. I noticed that the landing light in the wing leading edge was represented by just an indentation that was devoid of any shape or detail. Basically, it's just a flat spot that you put a clear lens over and they tell you to paint that area silver. So, I decided to make the light using scrap sprue and my drill bits. It's still fairly elementary, but at least it will appear that there is something occupying that space now. 

 

 

 

I did not take any photos of the instrument panel yet, but it appears as though I will be digging through my spare decals in an attempt to put something together that looks better than just painting the kit part. The detail on the instruments, themselves, is so faint that I can't really work with it by painting alone. As much as I would love to use an aftermarket panel, it's just not in the budget at the moment. So, we'll see what I come up with.  Stay tuned.

 

John

[alain11]

Hi 

Good job so far Well I think that the gear Bay is the most challenging area ,everything must be created, and there are quite a few things in there 

Alain

[dennismcc]

You have probably seen this and others before but this is the French Yak 3 being stripped back to original paint, the darker colour is AMT-7.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[Furie]

I post these links but I think you know them with a description of the colors of the Mig 3 cockpit and a color matching chart, even if MRP provides these paintings already made.

 

table of colors (massimotessitori.altervista.org)

 

VVS color matches (massimotessitori.altervista.org)

[Alain Gadbois]

Nice cockpit!

The kit panel is usable, if you find instrument decals it should look ok!

In reality there is a cover over the central instruments (useless weight, no?), but this would be a pain to make and not very noticeable.

The windscreen is a three part, glued together unit. Maybe just delicately scrape the raised details a bit then a touch of repolishing. Should look very similar to the photos we see.

 

Alain

 

[Dpgsbody55]

Nice project.  I haven't seen one of these done in a while, so looking forward to your progress.  I think it's one of Trumpeters better kits.  If you want some inspiration at all, there's a link to mine in my signature below.

 

Cheers,

Michael

Edited November 19, 2023 by Dpgsbody55

[mywifehatesmodels]

Thank you all for your comments and contributions. I greatly appreciate it.

 

19 hours ago, dennismcc said:

You have probably seen this and others before but this is the French Yak 3 being stripped back to original paint, the darker colour is AMT-7.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Dennis, that is a great picture! I did a comparison between this photo and the parts I had painted with MRP and it is definitely too light to be a perfect match. One could argue for scale effect, etc., but I must say that I also compared this photo to the AKAN paint test reference that I had made when I did my IL-2 and AKAN is pretty much a perfect match. The only issue for me with that, is that I only have a little bit of the AKAN AMT-7 paint left. So, what I'm thinking is that I may try to use what's left of it, starting with the panel lines and recesses, then work my way out from that. If I run short on the paint (and even if I don't), I may finish, or come back with the MRP in a light blending process. We'll see how it looks when I get there.

 

1 hour ago, Dpgsbody55 said:

Nice project.  I haven't seen one of these done in a while, so looking forward to your progress.  I think it's one of Trumpeters better kits.  If you want some inspiration at all, there's a link to mine in my signature below.

 

Cheers,

Michael

Michael, 

 

I remember your build and it's certainly one that inspires me to want to do a winter scheme Mig 3, as well. Years ago, I built the Classic Airframes kit in 1/48 scale, when it first came out. It's in the same livery and still hangs my shop ceiling to this day. I would love to do another, bigger, better representation. 

 

So, This evening I had some time to work on the instrument panel situation. As Alain has suggested, I'm going to do decals for the instruments, but not over the "stock" panel. Well, not quite, anyway. .......

 

First, I started by drilling out the instrument faces, trying to be as true to center of each circle as I could get with my Mk.1 eyeball. I used a small bit to start with and on the larger instruments on the upper portion of the panel, I came back with a slightly larger bit, to open them up to almost maximum. Again, trying to remain as centered as possible. 

 

 

Once the basic holes were established, I also started to thin the instrument panel. As thick as the kit part is, to just drill the holes without thinning the panel would give the appearance of looking through tubes, or into a can with instruments at the bottom. A lesson I learned the first time I tried this on an Airfix 1/24 scale Fw 190 cockpit, some 30 years ago. 

 

 

 

 

 

The next step is to cut a backing plate for the instruments to be placed. 

 

 

 

 

The next step is to tack them together lightly, but tight together and paint them.

 

 

 

I had a little trouble getting them apart, as the glue I used to tack them spread a little further than I had anticipated, so a few of the circles are damaged. This isn't a real issue, as they're just the target mark for you decals to sit. However, this method also gives you the option of etching your own instrument details into the face, should you choose/need to go that route. A method I have also done on a couple of occasions.

 

Jumping out of the cockpit for a bit, to show the intakes at the wing roots. It's my understanding that the Mig 3 had shutters that would close when on the ground, to keep debris from entering the intakes. Trumpeter has them basically closed off.  Given that I plan to do this aircraft in flight, I opened them up by drilling them out and then using needle files and strips of sandpaper to clean up the edges and insides.  There will still be more cleanup work to do to blend the seams, when I get to that point, but here's what they look like, at the moment.

 

 

 

 

And, with that completed, it was time to do a mock-up of the subassemblies, to check the fit. As with the couple of other Trumpeter builds that I've done, the fit is actually pretty good and you click most of this stuff together without even using tape. There will definitely be some seam work, but it IS a nice kit to build and the shapes are much better than a lot of other Trumpeter kits. 

 

 

 

From here, I'll probably be alternating, back and forth, between the instrument panel, starting on painting the pilot and likely additions/corrections to a few things in the cockpit. However, my goal is to have this finished by/about the end of the month, so I don't want to get bogged down, too much. 

 

Thanks again!

 

John

[MikeMaben]

[Borsos]

Very nice subject and great start on the dashboard! 
May I add a little hint? This pilot is suited for the 1943-1945 period as his uniform has a standing collar and shoulder straps. These were only (re)introduced in 1943 after Kursk. Until then the rank was shown on the stand-and-fall collar, like here:

In contrast to this 

it‘s only a tiny detail on a 1:32 scale figure, I mention it just in case you care.

Andreas

Edited November 19, 2023 by Borsos

[dennismcc]

For AMT-7 I have used Humbrol 89 which is not a million miles away from the AKAN version see below, my particular MiG 3 had the earlier underside colour and I tried to be clever and differenciate between the wood and metal portions (AII Blue and A18) but the contrast was too much so I chickened out and completed it with A18.

Cheers

 

Dennis

 

[Eugen Dem]

The control panel of the MiG-3 was painted in the color of the interior.

[Eugen Dem]

On 11/16/2023 at 7:51 PM, mywifehatesmodels said:

Thank you, Dennis!

 

There was a time that, for some reason, I couldn't get Massimo's site to come up any longer, so I assumed it had been taken down. Glad to see it's still up and it also appears, just from a quick glance, that he's updated some things since I last visited, including a new profile of this particular aircraft.

 

 

Previous profiles show the darker camouflage color as a dark green and not the gray/black shown here, which is likely more correct. I may also end up cutting masks for the number and going with white and, while I'm at it, why not cut some stars, too?   However, now I'll be spending some time going through his site again and it's almost like a kid in a candy store. So many options!

 

One thing is for certain, though. I will be painting the pilot and doing this plane in flight. So, that brings me to my next question; the painting of the pilot. Last night I was able to get the pilot figure cut from the resin block and start fitting the seat mount, cockpit floor, etc. Unfortunately, the instructions that come with the pilot leave a lot to be desired. It covers the general colors, but not much in detail (uniform buttons, other equipment, etc.). Therefore, I will need to do a little more research before I start painting, so if anyone has more info they can share, it woud be greatly appreciated. I know that Soviet uniforms were sort of an olive khaki, but beyond that, my knowledge is limited.

 

 

As you can see, the figure actually has a high level of detail and is really well done. I want to do it justice. On another note, in some of the photos of this group, do I see some of them wearing camouflage uniforms? I didn't know that was a thing for pilots of the VVS, or maybe a Black Sea Fleet thing. Again, any help is appreciated.

 

Thanks for checking in,

 

John

The pilot's seat did not have overhead seat belts. There were only belts on the waist.

[mywifehatesmodels]

And I thought late war Lufteaffe stuff was a minefield. I'm starting to remember my least favorite thing about building WW2 Soviet stuff.

 

John

[Eugen Dem]

Unfortunately, my account restrictions do not allow me to upload confirmation photos.

UPD Managed to add images

Edited November 19, 2023 by Eugen Dem