Trumpeter 1/32 Mig 3 "White 21"

[mywifehatesmodels]

There are also photos showing them having been painted black. Some of them were posted earlier in this thread, so I'm sure you can see where the confusion comes from. In any case, I'll be sticking with what I have for the moment and may just swear off Russian stuff from here on.

 

John

[Eugen Dem]

32 minutes ago, mywifehatesmodels said:

There are also photos showing them having been painted black. Some of them were posted earlier in this thread, so I'm sure you can see where the confusion comes from. In any case, I'll be sticking with what I have for the moment and may just swear off Russian stuff from here on.

 

John

Sorry please I was wrong!
The light dashboard was covered with a black panel. You painted it right!

[dennismcc]

My first reaction was to paint the IP black but I discovered that Photo on Massimos site and had to swiftly change my mind to AE-9.

It is a strange colour for an IP, all the other Soviet ones that I have seen photos of are black, the other suggestion is that the IP had a black cover which has been removed..

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

Edited November 19, 2023 by dennismcc

[Eugen Dem]

3 minutes ago, dennismcc said:

It is a strange colour for an IP, all the other Soviet ones that I have seen photos of are black, the other suggestion is that the IP had a black cover which has been removed..

You're right!

 

[Eugen Dem]

[mywifehatesmodels]

Today I was able to make some progress on the pilot. I had started by using the MRP black primer. From there, I gave the body a light coat of Tamiya Khaki. 

 

 

 

 

When that had dried, it was time to spray the seat and plate behind the pilot and try to "separate" the pilot from plate and determine how hard it was going to be to get into all the recesses, which are many and quite deep in spots. 

 

 

 

After this, I determined that I could actually mask between the pilot and plate, to a good extent. So, I masked it off and started to build on the colors of the pilot. I mixed another batch of paint using the Khaki with some of MRP's AMT-4, which is actually a touch on the brown side and started to build some thin layers. 

 

 

Once I had a solid base color, I painted the straps (Thanks for the info on the shoulder straps. Unfortunately, they are part of the pilot figure and I wasn't about to perform the surgery required to remove them. Call me lazy!  ). Then I started applying oil washes, thinned with mineral spirits. At this point, I'm pretty much done with the body and the seat and am just beginning to really work on the head. I had only just started working on the hands when I took these photos.

 

 

 

The base coat of the skin is Tamiya "Flesh". However, I noticed that it was activating the primer below and I was getting a little bit of bleed through from the black primer. Since then, I've given a base coat of Vallejo "Sunny Flesh" I believe and will likely finish out with the Vallejo flesh set I have (First trime trying it, so my fingers are crossed) and oil filters, if needed. 

 

Thanks for following!

 

John

[dennismcc]

I like it, my figure painting skills are zero so I am impressed.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[scvrobeson]

Looks great! Congrats on being able to get the seat and pilot done when molded together.  Could not have been an easy job

 

 

 

Matt 

[Phil Smith]

Nice work! I hope the pilot comes with a head. If not, that's cool. Whatever works.

[mywifehatesmodels]

Thanks, all!

 

I think I'm to the point where I'm going to call the pilot done. I wish the face was better, especially the eyes, but I've repainted them several times. Also, the paint on the face is getting pretty thick now and it's probably time to just let it go. This did serve a purpose, however. It allowed me to get a feel for the Vallejo paints. I've pretty much sworn off aqueous acrylic paints for most of my life, but I must say that these work better than I expected them to. However, there is a learning curve to using them, just like anything else. I find that they can be used in a similar way that one would use oils, but it just feels different. I don't know how to describe it, other than that. On the plus side, you can also follow up with oils and there's no real interference between the two, if you do. That is exactly what I did. I still find the oils more comfortable to use, but that's likely only because I've been doing it a lot longer and is in no way meant to slight Vallejo. I actually like them. I just need more practice.

 

 

 

From here, I started applying instrument decals to the backing plate I made for the instrument panel. I was lucky to find the kit decal from the Hobby Boss Sturmovik I built and cut some of of those out and have it about 60% complete, at the moment. I also did some more work on the wing root intakes and they're looking pretty good. It won't be long and I'll be putting everything together and getting ready to paint. 

 

Cheers,

 

John

Edited November 21, 2023 by mywifehatesmodels
Typos

[mywifehatesmodels]

I finally finished the instrument panel. It's not perfect and it's not accurate, but it looks the part and is surely several steps above what I would have achieved by just painting the kit panel. 

 

 

 

 

Most of the plane is now glued together. I still need to add the nose intakes and do a little more seam work in a few spots. I also made a couple of plates for the rear of the radio shelf and that sloped portion at the extreme rear of the canopy area. This was much easier than dealing with the huge seam in this area. Just decided to cover it up, instead. The next thing I need to do is to figure out exactly how I'm going to mount this to the post for the "In-flight" display. I think I have it figured out, but I'll give an update on that portion, once I get there. I'm also to the portion of the build where I need to coat the windscreen and canopy parts in Future, but I'm going to have to try to eliminate those bars from the windscreen, first. Wish me luck! 

 

John

 

[MikeMaben]

Looks very good to me John. 

[dennismcc]

Looks great with that pilot figure really adding to the look.

 

Cheers

 

Dennis

[mywifehatesmodels]

Thanks for the kind words, gents!

 

Before I went any further, I decided I needed to get the stand situation sorted out. I wanted everything to be in position before I started painting, so if I screwed it up, I could hopefully avoid removing any paint from the model. I had purchased a threaded rod and some brass tubing to cover it, along with a wood display base. Unfortunately, the brass tube doesn't quite fit (I could have sworn it would when I bought it!), so I ended up covering the threaded rod with some black hose that I had on hand.

 

 

 

Now that the "keeper" nut was in place, I had to find the angle I wanted and drill a hole through the wood base at the appropriate angle, and...

 

 

 

 

At this point, I need to finish the radio deck (not finding a lot of good references on that one yet, but I need to do some more searching), then I can get the canopy parts in line. Getting there, eventually.

 

John

[MikeMaben]

Looks good John. Just a suggestion you probably already thot of. I've built a few in-flights in the distant past

and I always used clear acrylic rod as a support. It's quite strong if you get a diameter similar to the rod you have.

One cool thing about it is you can heat it and bend it if so desired.  At the right angle and lighting, it sort of disappears.

 

 

 

I glued an acrylic ball on the end and a hole (also similar to yours) and popped it in.

Had to be careful but I could change the position of the model on the rod.

 

 

Just a suggestion maybe for future use.