Well they will certainly do the job but when I got them some arts were slightly bent out of shape, but it was easy to put them right. Also something I did, which you cannot do with plastic is I sprayed them with primer which I will keep as the colour then after it dried I filed the oleos, as it is metal they file to a bright shine like chrome, looked really good, after all what looks more like metal than metal.

Oh, right.   I had misread your post about them.  

Anyhow, they look good.

No Dre there was no detail on the SAC landing gear, I used wire and stretched sprue.

This is the gear bays, I have to add more detail though.

I tried my best to make plastic look like scorched metal, my best attempt yet I think.

Looks good and grubby, Dean.   I've got a couple of those SAC landing gear sets and none of them are that nicely detailed.   How odd...

This is the Scale Aircraft Conversions landing gear, these are basic struts any detail you will have to add yourself

Okay so here we are, I know the image is not the best but for now its the best I can do, this is an over all view, the paint has been weathered as best as I can without overdoing it

Vance, no- there's enough paint on her to prevent that, but it was a concern of mine to expose the underlying darker tones.   And thankfully, these Authentic Decals were printed on some of the thinnest carrier film I've dealt with so they didn't stand too proud of the paint.   I think that the ink was thicker than the film...

I'm not so sure that this would work well on thicker decals like those from Tamiya or Hasegawa.

The biggest issue is making big polished areas around the decals, making an overall surface polish a necessity so that there wasn't any glaring differences in the surface appearance.   If you have a high shine glossy paint job, then it shouldn't be an issue.

Hey Dean - looking forward to your pics!  

I hope to have my cockpit and payload dealt with this weekend, (as this is my next GB deadline due!) maybe even fuselage work done. I really like this Italeri/Bilek kit so far. Really nice details, low parts count. The cockpit itself could benefit from some aftermarket, but.... not much will be seen once closed up anyway, which is my plan.

Dre - sanding the decals... did you encounter any where you sanded off a layer of colour & exposed a white layer beneath?? Just wondering what would/could happen, depending on the decal manufacturer of course.

Hope it works out for you- this frogfoot is inspired by that run-down MiG.

Happy New Year!

I am going to ues your idea of sanding the decals as that's a very good looking finish on them, I usually paint over them to fade them and use a brush to break up the lettering but this seem much simpler.

Happy New Year all hope you all had a great Christmas too, I have just got back into the Mig, now there's no Spitfire to get in the way thank goodness! Anyhow the Mig is looking great and you all could see it but Photobucket will not upload my pictures it just keeps saying Error Loading, anyway I will get them sorted somehow, I might as well just say what Ive done and when I get the pictures up I'll go through them and explain. So I ordered the Scale Aircraft Conversions landing gear as the model was really quite heavy especially with a bunch of pennies glued together in the nose as weight. the landing gear was detailed with hydraulic hoses, break lines, and electrical wires. also the rear landing gear bays are getting the same treatment as this model is quite bare in terms of what detail should be there, but I like to make my own detail I get a lot of satisfaction from it, that's not to say that I would ever rule out resin, it's just how I do it. Hope to see how everyone is doing with their builds soon.

Frogfoot is looking good Dre. I'm starting to pick up some steam on the Su22 as I put the wraps on other kits. I managed to spend some time removing & cleaning up some parts, and have actually started assembly on the underwing stores...

Ah, I'm just figuring it out along the way.   I have an idea of what I want it to look like and no clear plan on how to get there.    This finish was inspired by a photo of a very tired and weathered MiG-29 that Dean posted some weeks back....  I want thing to look like it is run hard and put up wet.

Looks awesome! Your weathering/paintwork is subtle but very effective. I kowtow.

I hope to have the wings on my Su-25 in a few days. Will post pics.

All the decals are on this thing and hopefully all the major painting and shading is finished.  I need to do a little more detail painting and weathering before a final flat coating.

I've gone in and delicately sanded almost all the decals with 2000 grit paper to better blend them with the worn and weary paint....  some decals worked out better than others but overall they look much better than fresh.   There's somewhere around 200 decals on this aircraft and its weapons....

all that's left is ....   details, details details.

That worked. Thanks!

Porkbits- it is here cs.finescale.com/.../143692.aspx

dunno if that linking works or not

Dean: Congrads! I couldn't imagine trying to modeling for a business and then trying to do it for a hobby.  I'd burn out pretty fast.

Dre: Great job there! Love the camo.

I apologize on not much getting done on my front, I've been trying to finish other stuff off, will try to get to the Foxbat this spring.

Lol. The 1/48 is big, I can't imagine doing the 1/32!

Do you have a link for the Flanker GB thread? I can't seem to find it....

Although I have most of the western world's supply of 1/32 Flanker kits in my stash, I am by no means an expert on them.   And everyone's a noob until they build their first one.

It's a small GB that moves slowly- I've been working off and on on one or another for most of this past year.  Just got some more resin bits for one of them today as a matter of fact...  

Oh! Wow, I had no idea. Thanks for invite, Dre--as long as you guys don't mind a Flanker newbie? I could use some expert advice....

Yo, Porkbits...  there's a Flanker-only GB still running well into 2013 if you'd like to join up on that.

BTW, I'm the host and every one who completes a kit for that GB gets a FREE 1/350 miniFlanker.   Better than a badge any day!

Happy Holidays, everyone! Happy to report that one of my gifts is the Eduard limited edition Su-27, something I'd never shell out all that money for myself. :-)

I know the base Academy kit has issues (even with the Eduard goodies included with the re-pop), so my plan is buy a bunch of other aftermarket stuff for it including the Aires exhaust cans, Eduard Brassin wheels, and maybe some of the Eduard missile sets.

Unfortunately, the Pisco and Miniarm replacement noses are months out of production, and the Quickboost nose doesn't seem to be much of an improvement over the kit version...so I'm stuck with the kit version. Oh, well.

If anyone knows of other stuff I should buy or be aware of, lemmeno! Can't wait to sink my teeth into this beast after I finish the Su-25k.

Cheers,

PB

Oops! Sorry, Dre. What I get for reading the thread on my phone. :-) In any event, your Frogfoot looks awesome. Hope mine turns out half that good.

Frogfoot is looking sweet Dre. I'm closing in on the finish line on my active stuff, so I've pulled the Su22 out of the stash. One if the decal options looks like 3-colour camo right around the nose, overall light grey everywhere else. Could be a cool way to try some pre-shading.

Sorry Porkbits, but it's Dean27 that's earning the beer money, not me.   Looking forward to seeing your Frogfoot as I'm close to getting finished on mine.  

Despite the failed end of the world, I've gotten some of the decals onto this Frogfoot.  Since it is a trainer, I've decided to put as many factory stencils on it as I can find as I assume the ground crews would be trainees as well.   I still need to decal the underwing pylons, the various wheel doors and some other things and then it's more weathering.   I've used an Authentic Decals set as the kit's decals weren't as nice.

Yeah, enjoy your hard-earned $$$, Dre! :-)

Making slow progress on my Su-25...pit and two fuselage halves assembled, nacelles almost finished (man, were they tricky). Also ordered some more Eduard goodies (Aphids, pylons, and rocket tubes) which arrived a couple of days ago. Should push the amount of aftermarket stuff on this kit waaaay over the top. :-)

In any event, after tonight probably won't get much done until after Xmas here in the States. :-(