BIG Russian Jet Groupie GB

Oh no, I did those panels first, thinking that I could paint them, mask everything off and then add the vertical stabs and the underside fins before doing the camo.   Everything was copacetic until I masked them and that's when the tape melted into the paint...

I still haven't figured this sequence out myself, hence the 2-year stall on this bird, so good luck buddy!

OK, I checked my links and in one of the builds, the guy painted engines after, so I was wrong. In any event, I think your advice is wise and based on hard experience, Dre, so I'll paint them last.

PB you have to leave the alclad 24 hours before touching it with tape, it will seem bone dry after a few mins but the tape should definitely wait at least 24 hours. Also if you leave the alclad to the last, use future on the finished paint a few coats should do it, you may remember the Mirage I did, well after the glass coat and had the decals on it, I then put about 3 coats of future over the decals, the finish was so strong that I could actually buff the surface of the model without even touching the decals, it was fantastic, I could put as much tape on it and there was no risk of damage to decals or paint. so if you're leaving the alclad to the end, I always do, then a few layers of future will ensure your model wont suffer any damage whatsoever, also with so many coats of future, make sure you leave it a few hours between coats and use micromesh on the future as other wise you get the orange peel look and it's damn near impossible to remove if you build a layer of future that goes like that. Also one more thing, you don't need to thin alclad, it's ready to use from the bottle.

All duly noted! I'm a big fan of Future for sealing and protecting finishes, so will definitely use it to protect the finished paint and camo areas.

What colour are you going to do the nose? Just curious as the appearance is very stark in my opinion sometimes grey looks better and other times white, and a gloss green looks great!

Blue 56 definitely gets a white nose, based on my references. I bought AKAN's white for this purpose which is labeled as "Streamlined antenna covers (radiotransparent) for aircrafts Su-24/27/30/32/33/34."

I'm definitely going for a clean build, so I guess a little stark is OK. Or maybe I'll mix in a tiny bit of gray to tone it down.

No way clean is best in my opinion.

Agreed! :-)

Here's my contribution to the group build...  

I just finished the Hasegawa 1/72 Su-33 Flanker-D Yellow 13 from Ace Combat.  Check out the build thread here.  More completion pictures can be found here.  I hope you like it!

Kudos to you posted on the other thread. :-) Awesome build, sir.

Thats a great looking Flanker and the First SU-33 I have seen on here.

Thank you everyone.

My next project is going to be the Trumpeter 1/72 Su-27 done-up as Ukraine Blue 56.  I have ordered a decal sheet for this project from Ivan at modelsua.com, but given the unrest in the region (no fault of modelsua) ....we'll see.

Nice! Same bird I'm working on now.

Although I started in December, before any of the issues in the Ukraine. :-)

Getting there.....

Maybe one more light coat of Future, dry, then I start the camo....

This build seems to be fighting me every step of the way, but I'm fighting back, goddammit (example: knocked loose the IP and cockpit tub while spraying future, spent an hour re-assembling the PE bits that fell off and then wrestling everything back into place--modeling is fun, right?). 

PB

Looking like a Flanker to me, PB.    Knocking parts off is part of the fun, oh yeah.   (but how did you knock the cockpit tub loose whilst spraying Future??)

I should be able to get some oven cleaner onto my own tonight as using brake fluid did a whole lotta of nothing to actually remove the paints...  I can't say when I'll get around to throwing more paint at it though.

Nice work Porkbits.  I see you have the PE exhaust.  How difficult are they to assemble correctly? How long did it take you?

Thanks, guys. Yeah, Dre, despite my best (worst?) efforts to make it otherwise (ie, a ball of plastic), it looks like a Flanker. ;-)

T3ch--Spotted em! Those are the North Star burner cans. You probably don't want to know what I went through, but....I ended up buying not one, not two, but three sets of those things. Yep. Three. I probably spent as much on those as I did on the whole kit. Oh well.

The assembly of the turkey feathers doesn't take that long (maybe an hour or less), but I ruined the first two sets trying to get it right. The trick is trying to line them up correctly while making sure you've wrapped them tightly around the resin tube, which is hard because you're working with some really thick PE metal (brass?), there are four sets/layers of feathers, and I'm not sure that all of them line up correctly if you follow the instructions.

So after I ruined the first--"Oh, OK, NOW I know what I need to do." Then I ruined the second and "OK, NOW I GOT IF FIGURED OUT." Third time's the charm, I guess, although they're not perfectly assembled, they're still better than the kit or Aires cans.

Then after all that, you have to assemble the flame holder, which on the upside has a ridiculous amount of detail and is a whole model unto itself, the downside being the PE parts are so small you'd need an electron microscope to get everything assembled. So I left off the smallest bits since you won't be able to see them anyway.

Oh, and Dre, I flipped the plane around to spray some part of the bottom and my fingers landed right on the IP. Since apparently I didn't glue the cockpit tub in securely, when I inadvertently pressed on the IP with my fingers, the pressure popped loose the IP and the tub (only at the front). Luckily the cockpit remained secured in the back, or the whole kit might have ended up in the trash. :-) Good times.

Lol, this isn't supposed to be a contact sport!    

Looks great, you can see the nose is pretty much perfect even though there's tape on it. The nose, seat and decals I ordered have so far been lost in the post, have to say I'm losing patience with Royal Mail, mainly because the parts I ordered basically equalled the price of the kit, and also because they're useless. I am useless with photo etch but those cans are really impressive and makes me curious to try them myself, though having said that there's no guarantee they'll arrive from Latvia considering who's delivering them lol, sorry venting a bit here. PB looks great!

Lol, Dre, this is true, I'm just ham fisted sometimes, erm, all the time. :-)

Thanks, Dean. Maybe the nose looks perfect *because* there's tape on it? Hee. There's definitely some leftover shape issues, but I think I got it generally OK (I'll just have to photograph from the "best" angles). At least I hope so, as  I sanded the #$%#@ thing for about ten hours.

From my pulled back perspective you also can't see the kinda mess I made of the rear stab-to-fuselage join, and that nose seam that I didn't quiiiiiiite get rid of. :-( Hoping that the darker gray camo and "56" decal will cover most of it because I don't feel like tearing back into the paint job and making things worse.

In any event, that sucks re: mail issues. So frustrating because there's not much you can do.  I hope everything shows up eventually. :-( I ordered the first set of cans from Latvia and they arrived surprisingly quickly. Then, of course, I later found that Sprue Brothers carries them here in the States. Oops.

I too know the hassle of waiting on the mail to get me my decals.   It took several months, some emails and a phone call to someone who doesn't speak English all too well to get the 1/32 Begemot Su-27 stencil sets sent from Mother Russia.  

But, the wait was worth it in the end.   Keep after the sender, Dean.

Porkbits

T3ch--Spotted em! Those are the North Star burner cans. You probably don't want to know what I went through, but....I ended up buying not one, not two, but three sets of those things. Yep. Three. I probably spent as much on those as I did on the whole kit. Oh well.

<snip>......horrible pain and suffering....</snip>

Thanks for the info....I think I'll just stick with the stock cans.  Yours look great though!

I will do Dre, Hannants told me to get in touch Monday if it's still nowhere to be seen, pretty annoying but I really want the stuff so I'm not gonna leave it.

For those of you that are working-on or may build Ukraine's "Blue 56"....here are some images I just completed for custom decals in preparation for my build.  These were made from some low-rez photos I found on the inarwebs with perspective correction and a ton of retouching.  I tried to keep some of the graffiti/spray can look but up the detail so they could be used for most any scale and look crisp and clean.

Eagle for the right virtical stab:

...and the eagle with Ukraine flag for the left side fuse:

Nice! Those look great. The Eduard kit comes with all the necessary markings so I should be all set, though.

Woohoo- I've finally gotten all of the old paint off of my Su-27UB C after 4 days of spraying Easy Off oven cleaner, waiting and then scrubbing it with an old toothbrush.   This stuff won't remove paint quickly, but it does work eventually and fairly thoroughly.   I need to go back and wash the aft section with a little soap to remove any remaining chemicals and then I can begin to finish this thing once again.  

T3chDad- those Ukrainian birds look great!   Nice work to retouch them from low-res imagery!!

I can't wait to see more of this build PB, hows it coming together?

Nice, Dre! Post some pics when you get re-started again? :-)

Dean, lol, I didn't want to bore you guys with too many updates, so I was going to wait, but...getting down to the painting nitty gritty. This is where the hard work of construction starts to pay off (usually); she's almost starting to look like Blue 56 (at least from the bottom). :-)

Had to resolve some airbrush problems over the weekend (of course, because that's this build), but after that hurdle, detailed the intakes. Tonight I'm going to tackle painting the nose. After that, I'll apply the camo on both sides of the forward fuselage (beneath the cockpit), then the camo on the upper surfaces.

I ordered about US $70 (eeek, don't tell wife) worth of Alclad paints, primer, and Tamiya weathering pigments so they'll be here when I'm ready to dive into the engines. Gulp.

I can post some pics later tonight, EST, if you're interested.

Hope everyone is doing well!

PB

Money well spent for the engines PB the stuff lasts a good while too, considering you're basically painting the rear of the aircraft, here's what the combination of pigments, alclad and tamiya clear blue and red looks like, I used hot metal blue as well from alclad.

and in the light it looks different,