Made In USSR GB

No fingerprints, let it dry!

I envy you, I'm still a day or two away from the paint booth... last night was the last round of assembly.  Just a bunch of clean-ups and details to sort out before I can get to painting.  I hope the humidity drops soon..

My T-62 has its flat black primer coat applied.  Planned on hitting it with the basic MM Russian Armor Green today.  I'll take photos and post ASAP.

You're well ahead of me then, as I have not yet attempted a dio....  I have some ideas, though..`

Where are the the rest of the folks that sigmned onto this GB?  Ozzman?  You started it, get back here!

Dre

Well, I think it looks just great as it is.    If you're going to display it alone, without a base, then I think it ought to be clean....  add a base or a dio setting and then more aggressive weathering puts it in context.

The mig-31 diorama will probably my first real diorama if not finish first the ka-18 subject diorama.

Well, I think it looks just great as it is.    If you're going to display it alone, without a base, then I think it ought to be clean....  add a base or a dio setting and then more aggressive weathering puts it in context.

oh some more reply between i'm reply

At the time i just want to finish it, without exageteate with wheatering (need a little friend to put with a finished js2... and that's my complete red army tanks.. ) . Have lots of time to do better armors

not for the weathering (i'm really beginner on tank or veichles) i did just a black wash on it and some little mud effect (drybrush) on tracks.

the kit is from um 1/72 ,the unit is from 3th guard tank army, voronezh front in autumn 1943 (just read instructions )

Tracks was in hard plastic , more easy to paint and cleanings flashes, but lots of problem to put on

On it i finished the main body, then glued wheels and at the end finished tracks with ca glue .

On the next tank i'll try to finish under body seaparated from upper armor parts, and glue after finish to put tracks

Dre: As usual good tips.  I'll hit it with the Russian Armor Green first (thinned 50%), then experiment on scrap with various mixtures of the Green and Light Grey, Tan, etc.  I'll keep detailed notes as to proportions for use in the future.

Thanks for the suggestions.

bsyamato:  WWII Soviet armor received very hard use, so extreme weathering could apply, but the photos I've seen don't look like the rusty wrecks that some builders produce.  I admire their skill and its their build, but I still think some folks over-do it.  Your SU-85 looks good to me.  We should remember that the vehicles are also home to their crews and unit discipline will impose a level of cleanliness and repair.

I appreciate your interest and suggestions.

Bsyamato, from what little I know of WWII Soviet armor, that shade of green should be OK, and it certainly looks OK by my eyes.   There seems to be quite a variance of acceptable shades/tones of green for that era...  apparently lime green is right out.   In the end, if it looks right to you then it is right.  Historically accurate is whole 'nother thing entirely (and something that I don't worry to much about).

MAJMike-  if you lay down a good (but not too thick) base coat of black and are careful and patient about building up the basic green paint, then you can be a lot more sparing in the use of the darkened/lightened areas.  When I color shade or modulate or whatever its called, I try for a really dilute mixture so I see how well that particular shade is working, but it does take longer to build an noticeable tonal difference.  I find it's easier than mixing up a stronger mix and shooting it in one go- that's when I break out the SimpleGreen and have to start over. 

Alternately...  you can get away with using Tamiya clear Smoke, highly diluted, as a shading paint.   I think that it works better on aircraft than armor, but it does work.  For the highlights, I use Model Master acrylic flat mixed with a very small amount of buff or sand color to both flatten the paint and add a suggestion of highlight effect.  In the end, there's a lot of different ways of achieving the same effect through different methods, finding the one that works best for you is the challenge.

bsyamato:  Looks good to me.  I was just thinking that some builders go too far with the rust and weathering.  Cold War Soviet vehicles weren't used much due to economic expense and unit vehicles (according to some sources that I've read) were not parked out in the elements.  My thought was that my T-62 would be a straight-up Red Army vehicle and not one sold to a client nation.

I don't know what historical period your SU-85 represents.  But as with all of your builds it looks good to me, better than my poor efforts.

MAJ Mike

 

Dre:

 

MAJMike, looking good with the PE.   Are you going to shade or modulate the Russian Green?  It ought to be relatively easy after the black base coat.  Keep it coming.

Khalee2, bring'em on!

 

 

The "Russia Armor Green" is real green.  I may start with a straight coat in the original color, then try a lighter coat on the upper surface.  Red Army vehicles were typically stored under cover in sheds or car port-like structures, so unless they were in active operation (like in Afghanistan) there probably wasn't a lot of weathering.  They'd get dirty during maneuvers, but weathering might not be an issue.

I'll fiddle and experiment with it.  I'm still on a learning curve compared to you guys.  Thanks for the feedback.

i used just the 116 from humbrol on my su-85 wrong?

Dre

Yeppers, Russia Armor Green can be a bright color...  I was asking more in respect to livening up the monotone green to add depth as opposed to a weathering approach.   It's fairly easy in theory- darker green for the shadow areas and a lighter green on the top surfaces.   It's something that I myself am slowly trying to incorporate in my paint jobs.

Learning curve?  I wasn't even building aircraft until last year (after a 20+ year hiatus)...  it is all patience and a willingness to try a new thing or two.  This MiG represents the most scratchbuilding that I've ever put into a kit, and compared to bsyamato's work I should pull up a chair to learn. 

Keep plugging away and asking questions, that's what we're here for after all.

Good idea.  Thanks for the input.  Any success I have is strictly by accident.  I've started to keep notes on painting mixes, compressor psi, etc on the kit instructions and then I keep a loose-leaf notebook of the instructions and any other references I used.  Guess its a bit OCD (ever notice that the letters for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder are out of order?), but you never know and the notebook doesn't take up too much room.

I'll definitely lighten up a 2nd coat of Russian Green on the upper areas of the T-62.  Maybe 50/50 Russian Green and Light Grey?  If I don't like it I can always paint it flat black and start over.

Didn't mean to go so long, but these threads are the best sources of information.

Cheers.

Yeppers, Russia Armor Green can be a bright color...  I was asking more in respect to livening up the monotone green to add depth as opposed to a weathering approach.   It's fairly easy in theory- darker green for the shadow areas and a lighter green on the top surfaces.   It's something that I myself am slowly trying to incorporate in my paint jobs.

Learning curve?  I wasn't even building aircraft until last year (after a 20+ year hiatus)...  it is all patience and a willingness to try a new thing or two.  This MiG represents the most scratchbuilding that I've ever put into a kit, and compared to bsyamato's work I should pull up a chair to learn. 

Keep plugging away and asking questions, that's what we're here for after all.

Dre

MAJMike, looking good with the PE.   Are you going to shade or modulate the Russian Green?  It ought to be relatively easy after the black base coat.  Keep it coming.

Khalee2, bring'em on!

The "Russia Armor Green" is real green.  I may start with a straight coat in the original color, then try a lighter coat on the upper surface.  Red Army vehicles were typically stored under cover in sheds or car port-like structures, so unless they were in active operation (like in Afghanistan) there probably wasn't a lot of weathering.  They'd get dirty during maneuvers, but weathering might not be an issue.

I'll fiddle and experiment with it.  I'm still on a learning curve compared to you guys.  Thanks for the feedback.

MAJMike, looking good with the PE.   Are you going to shade or modulate the Russian Green?  It ought to be relatively easy after the black base coat.  Keep it coming.

Khalee2, bring'em on!

Well the kits are the Amodel 1/72 scale su-1 prototype and 1/72 scale I-302 rocket plane.

Sorry don't know why the images did not show up  they showed up in the preview .

If they come in time I will go with these two kits if Ok. I'm ordering from roll models so it will be two three weeks at most before I get them.

Dre

 

 

 

After finishing the Butcher Bird's decals and mowing the yard, I got back to work and have been gotten a lot accomplished... I scratched up some cosmetic pieces to cover up things I didn't like, such as an unsightly hole behind the pilot's seat.  I had thought that there might be a kit part for that location, but alas not.  It's just a ugly hole.  Using an FSM tip, I cut up an aluminum can with scissors and fashioned rivets using a sharp pointy probe.  Superglued that into place and nevermind the double-tap in the upper-right corner... the rear canopy section should minimize that nicely.

 

 

Green or Snow-White?  Hmm..

evergreen! (imho)

this will a detailed  speedbuilt!

---

Nice pe on the tank mike

curious about your way to put tracks

More WIP on the T-62A:

Hull is ready for primer coat.  Some use of PE details, not using everything in the detail kit.  As my skill level improves, I'll do more detailing.

Wicked seams on the aux fuel tanks and dust really shows up on this photos.  Will prime surface with flat black enamel paint and follow with Model Master "Russian Armor Green" enamel.

Thanks for looking.

Dre: Sweet!

I got back to  the MiG sooner than anticipated as because the decals on the 190 had to be done in work-and-let-dry sessions, so back to Mother Russia for a spell ... 

This morning I added a brace inside the fuselage so the lower wing assembly would fit flush and super-glued all 14 control surface hinges into the lower wing.  If you're careful, you can get all of them working well beyond MiG's intended limit!  All this needed to dry for a while so I then went back to decaling the other bird...

After finishing the Butcher Bird's decals and mowing the yard, I got back to work and have been gotten a lot accomplished... I scratched up some cosmetic pieces to cover up things I didn't like, such as an unsightly hole behind the pilot's seat.  I had thought that there might be a kit part for that location, but alas not.  It's just a ugly hole.  Using an FSM tip, I cut up an aluminum can with scissors and fashioned rivets using a sharp pointy probe.  Superglued that into place and nevermind the double-tap in the upper-right corner... the rear canopy section should minimize that nicely.

Next up was the three MG's..  The kit parts are pretty featureless and I had a better idea.  I cut 1" lengths of some 1/16" aluminum rods and then drilled out the cowling to accept them.   They are way out of scale for MG's, but I think that they will look better then even drilling out the originals.  If not, well then lesson learned.

To wrap up the day's events, I glued the lower wing into place and the brace I added working perfectly in it's intended role.  The scallop-shaped indentation and the puttied area will be covered by the radiator scoop, so clean up here will be easy.  The rear wings fit really well and were glued in, as were the various cowling panels.  Bits of tape to hold alignment was used and I think that it's starting to look like an airplane..  all that's really left to assemble is the undercarriage and underwing stores.  Possibyl some minor cosmetics in the wheel wells and that should do it for the easy part.

Green or Snow-White?  Hmm..

That is great work so far, I can't wait to see these painted up!

I haven't yet had a need to scratch-up a new instrument panel, but after seeing these I have a good idea about how to do it.  I'm so going to steal some of these things!

thanx for comment, i like to see better cockpit but unfortunately latest kit i'm building was really poor on this

last month i scratched 3 cockpit and an ejection seats and the fourth is coming for an harrier gr3 ... 

Really tedious but even lots of fun

To compensate today started the f-4f phantom from revell that comes with great whole cockpit and good seats!

Nice work on flaps Dre

The kit allow to leave flaps movable?

then update:

main ip are finished, it took a total of 3 or four hours.

fit seems good

that's all for now, hope to finish soon the whole forward section.

Terry, if you have a photo of that scheme, i'd love to see it. 

Well I've had a read through the pages and I am impressed with the amount of work so far. I have noticed that a couple of people have opted for older kits, the Katyusha old Italeri, MajMike with the only T62 on the block for a long time, should be interesting to see what is made from these as many modellers on this forum have done excellent work on older kits and I'm sure it will be the same here. Dre thanks for the kind words, that Mig 3 is one of the only wingy kits I own and it is a true beauty, I must confess that I never got around to it because when I look at theh kit I feel some weird obligation to finish it in  a winter scheme and the scheme I love for it is the one without the cockpit cover, used in a camo scheme over Leningrad and looks like a Japanese Tony (I think) with the sprayed squiggle.

Well I'm gonna`head off and probably start cutting those tracks from the sprues.

Terry.

Dre: I'd say you are a Zen master of plastic.  The MiG is looking great.

Terry, please do join us as your finished work is truly stunning.

I was able to steal some time  this past week to finish off the cockpit and the movable tail surface and get them installed inside the fuselage.  I shaved off the fuselage locating pins to get better alignment and used tape to hold it all together while it dried.  I had some Eduard preprinted PE seat belts that were left over from a previous build and mixed and matched the pieces until the belts looked credible. 

The cockpit, once  I finished all of the painting, got a Windsor & Newton raw umber oil paint wash for that dirty look.  I'll add another, much darker wash before I glue the canopy parts on... and some more bright-n-shiny wear patterns.  I wish I could hand-paint the dial faces on the instrument panel better- I could have gone with a decal set or some PE but have chosen to make this kit with materials at hand instead of buying more specifically for the project. 

This kit, like some other Trumpeter offerings, has posable flight surfaces.  While not at all difficult to build, they do require attention so as to not lose the small metal connecting pins.  I still need to fill some gaps before I add these to the wing....  which is going to be a treat, as you'll soon see.

Speaking of wing...  I went ahead and glued the top wing panels in place now because dry-fitting with the lower section showed a possible root gap and surface mismatch.  Honestly, the dry fit of the upper wings to the fuselage is excellent and I'd rather have any ugly bug-a-boos on the underside (out of sight).   Getting the flaps into play and maintaining a tight fit with the upper wings might get interesting.

That's a 1/32 Hasegawa FW 190A8 side project shown for scale...  this MiG 3 has some funky proportions but is about the same general size as a FW 190.  Compared to a Bf 109, the MiG 3 is markedly shorter but has a slightly wider wingspan.   

That's all for now as I'll be working to finish off the 190 before I get back to the MiG.

Put me in as a maybe for the moment with the trumpeter Russian Voroshilovets Tractor, a cool looking vehicle.

Terry.

bsyamato: lot of skilled scratch building there; looking forward to photos with paint, etc; looking good so far.