Made In USSR GB

KJ - LOVE that Mig-15! The -27 is gorgeous, too. Well done of the soft-edge camo. Was that freehand or masked?

Free handed with Gunze acrylics and a Badger 100.

It's probably a bit over scale for 1/72 but I like the effect.

Karl

Well, this is where I'm stopping for now on my T34-76 because I want to come back to it in the future, possibly in a dio setting.  All that has been done is the multi-hued green paint, a basic dry brushing with more British Khaki on the edges and a nasty wash of black oil paint with a quick spritz of a flattening/dust coat to wrap it up.  

Under flourescent lighting

in the kit box under sunset lighting

I'm pretty happy with my results with this kit thus far, sadly the MiG needs some more work to get it finished as I keep weathering A/C as if they were armor.

Dre, stunning job on the 34.

The wash and shading are spot on.

I started work on the AZ Models Mig 17 PF last night.......

......and oh dear.

This is so a limited run kit:

• Gobs of excess plastic on the wings.
• Soft detail, and very faint panel lines.
• Joints on the wings which run across flaps & ailerons.
• No intake trunk.

Apart from the above though it looks like it will be fine with a bit of work. The cockpit is fine OOB, with a 6 peice ejection seat which just needs belts to look good.

I've glued the pit together, along with the ejector seat, as well as the drop tanks and wing halves, hence noticing the issue with the joints & panel lines.

I'll post some pics tonight.

Karl

Pics....

Interesting set of marking options..

Tub & bang seat.

Those bloody joints

Blue lines show the panel lines, while the white is the actual join line!

Karl

Great t-34 Dre hope to see it in the diorama

Another short-run kit on the gb Karl, the wing seams are perfect to set panel lines

I was finally able to get some bench time, well more like paint booth time. 

I put on a light flat black coat.  I let it sit over night and this morning I put on the green base coat.

I have to apologize for the picture quality; I used my cell.  SWMBO took the camera with her out of town.

This is the best photo of the black.  Only one was decent enough to post.

The next three are the base green coat.  The wheels (not pictured) also received the same green color.

Next up... Decals, followed by winter wash.

As first armor seems really great to me

i'll take some picture of my m-47 if you want to laugh for my first

Joe, nice job on the Russian Green.

It looks spot on.

The AZ Mig 17 is starting to come together now with the pit and bang seat painted up.

I've added some basic straps to the seat out of Tamiya tape.

Here's a shot of the very nice resin nose intake removed from it's pouring stub.

One slight problem though.....

...there's absolutely nothing behind that lovely intake, just a gaping hole that goes all the way back to the cockpit!

So after a rummage through the spares box to find a suitable splitter substitute, and the addition of a blanking plate, and whole lot of Tamiya filler, I ended up with this.

Which after lots more filling & sanding, and a little paint I ended up with this.

Not perfect but considerably better than the void that was there before.

I've just applied an oil wash to the pit and seat, so off to clean up undercarriage parts while that dries.

Karl

Last paint of the day...  And, last update for at least another week.  Ran out of bench time for this weekend.

I was able to paint the tracks and lay down a coat of white wash.  It did not turn out the way I wanted to but It is going to have to do for now.  Next is some future, then decals (maybe).

I still need to finish all the top deck misc tools, spare track pieces and some light weathering.  Almost there...

I seriously enjoying my building my first armor!

Well Karl that is just a stunning Mig 15, beautiful and well done. As for the rest of the MiG's they are all works of art.

Dre, the Mig looks and as for the T34, that overhead shot should be on the cover of a Mag.

Bsyamoto, nice '85. colour looks fine from where I'm sitting.

Khalee I don't know what these wingy things are but by they very nature of there obvious rarity they are pure eye candy.

Terry.

Nearly forgot to post my own update. Ooop's.

. It's been a kinda slow process getting the howitzer finished/built.

I am almost there and I must confess that while it is a mixed bag of nuts, excellent in parts and almost east european in others, but all in all an excellent kit. Slightly expensive though.

Well on with some pic's.

The whole so far. about 13inches.

Those tracked front pontoons, apparently only used for short trips, a full wheel set replaced them for long hauls and the gun was broken down.

Not too much to comment on the rest.

Ooop's , seams, seams..... days of work sorting out bad fitting seams.

The rifling is photo etch and just slots in after a brief annealing, I mean it fits perfect.....

Two nights fixing the seams on the breech, just terrible.

Want reference just click into primeportal....

http://www.primeportal.net/artillery/yuri_pasholok/203mm_b-4_howitzer_mod.1931/

Thanks for looking,

Terry.

Progress has been a bit on the slow side here, between not getting much bench time & getting stuck in a bit of a rut with a seemingly endless number of small parts for trimming & sanding.............. Anyway, it hopefully shouldn't be that long before I can start to get some of these bit together into a larger & more meaningfull state;

Weapons bay with 6 missiles decaled & clear coated. The Begemot decals are very accurate & detailed, they also come with a very detailed placement guide with colour call-out's for the model, which are more detailed than those supplied by Trumpeter - on the down side the decal carriers were a bit on the yellow side for my liking;

The main landing gear bays are done;

The exhausts are best part finished apart from the contrast in the inside needing toned down a bit. I've been trying to figure out away to detail the contrasting dark & light sections of the outside of the petals that show when the exhausts are in there fully opened position - I could mask them up to do it, but it would take an eternity..............................;

The intakes are part done & presenting a fit problem;

The wings are also part done, but are taking some time due to the number of parts involed (50>60 per wing), here they are with flaps, but still without spoilers, slats & the inboard wing closure / fence arrangement;

To preserve what little sanity I have, I've been using zip seal bags to & keep the parts in a figurable order;

This is one of the inner flap sections;

Joe- that's your first armor build?  Certainly looks as if you've been at them for a while.   Great looking tank destroyer, I can't wait to see it finished as I've never had any luck with whitewashes.   Kind of a shame to cover up that base paint work as it had such a grimy, used look.   It looked washed and weathered already.   You're on a good path to the Dark Side.

Karl, good save on the intake blanking.  After that NMF, how are you going to paint this one?

Milairjunkie- that detail painting makes me want to cry it's so clean and precise.  Those wings would drive me insane, but I will "borrow" your method of numbering and tracking parts.

Terry- I'm glad that you're tackling that towed artillery because I've often wondered what one would look like built up.   It's so odd-looking that it can only be Russian.   And thanks for the comments on the T34- that's the most flattering thing anyone has ever said about one of my models (I'm blushing like a schoolgirl).

Bsyamato- where's the finished 'copter? 

Keep up the great work guys, from what I'm seeing here I think that I need some more Soviet aircraft in my stash.   

Dre

 that detail painting makes me want to cry it's so clean and precise.  Those wings would drive me insane, but I will "borrow" your method of numbering and tracking parts.

I can't say I have cried at any point, but I am now slightly more ***-eyed than before. The wings with their small parts are more of a challenge than I had imagined, it's not that they are difficult or uninteresting in themselves, but the repetitive twiddling with such a large number of similar parts is a challenge. I don't know as I don't do AFV's, but I imagine complex tracks can get like this?

I would imagine that doing the styrene indy links would be like that, so I use the much easier Friul metal tracks which take about 1 hour per side to link together.  Mindlessly repetitive but once you get into the zone the time just flies by... and no waiting for the glue to dry!

As for the crying, it is because I have lost a degree of fine motor control in right hand since my neck surgery in March.  I know what I could do once upon a time, but now it is increasingly frustrating to not be able to do it anymore.   But, your detail work sure is nice to look at and envy.

Karl good modding on the nose zone

Joeviz, one of my su-85 option was the winter camo, now i see your wintered 85 i regret my green choice

Terry nice build on the artillery piece.

Milairjunkie what beast the tupolev!!! i fear my little gannet for the flaps opened option but the blackjack seems have outstandig flaps and too huge number of pieces 

Dre the kamov is not finished actually too few free time, hot sun and girls and lots of work keep me away from the workbench

I'm calling this MiG 3 finished as well.  Still not too thrilled with my weathering, but I'm (supposed to be)learning.  I didn't use any references in painting and decaling this kit, so I don't know if a lack of topside Red Stars on the wings is correct or not...and I don't really mind if it isn't!   I really wanted to use the red arrow striping, but those decals were not cooperative in the least.

That little wiring detail on the bomb racks- I can see that I need to seat the locating pin a bit deeper.

All in all, if you like pain-free big-scale birds then i really do recommend this kit as it was simple to assemble, the wing fit is perfect and it doesn't require an advanced paint job.  I'd give it 5/5 (red) stars.

Looks great Dre!  Your weathering is fine.  

Dre

I'm calling this MiG 3 finished as well.  Still not too thrilled with my weathering, but I'm (supposed to be)learning.  I didn't use any references in painting and decaling this kit, so I don't know if a lack of topside Red Stars on the wings is correct or not...and I don't really mind if it isn't!   I really wanted to use the red arrow striping, but those decals were not cooperative in the least.

That little wiring detail on the bomb racks- I can see that I need to seat the locating pin a bit deeper.

 

All in all, if you like pain-free big-scale birds then i really do recommend this kit as it was simple to assemble, the wing fit is perfect and it doesn't require an advanced paint job.  I'd give it 5/5 (red) stars.

looks really good

i've a good site for russian reference

don't know that you withou reference for the little mig, sorry Dre

Don't apologize Bsyamato about the refs...  I wanted to build this one that way!     The MiG and the T/34 were both stress-reliever builds for me after I've been fighting some complicated projects (1/32 Cyber-Hobby Bf109, 1/32 DML Bf 110 C7, 1/32 Eduard Bf 109).   Historical accuracy was given far less weight than the pure build-for-the-fun-of-it.  

But what is that Russian site that you mentioned?   Now that my interest in Soviet aircraft, especially MiG and Sukhoi, is peaked I'll be looking for details for future builds.

Looking back that MiG, I think that I need to add some exhaust trails and finish weathering the landing gear.   The antenna mast needs to be reattached for the eleventy-fifth time and wired, the nav lights need to be put on..   wait, this thing ain't done by long shot!

the site is airwar ru 

click on the link to open, the site, the only bad thing is that only russian language avaible and not so simple to find what you  need

the trick is to learn about the various sections avaible what they mean, ex fww2 are the Fighter world war 2 section .. and so on

Yes, it's a pretty handy site - I have also used it for Tu-160 reference pics, which are to be honest pretty thin on the ground.

Thanks for the link, bsyamato.   I'll bookmark it for later use.

I've always wanted to learn Russian, just haven't had the opportunity yet.

I have also used this site in the past.  I usually go to it using Google Chrome.  Once I open a link I use the translate to English option.  Not the best but close enough to help me understand what is being said.

Please add me to this GB.  I have 4 or 5 1/144 jets to add but I can't remember which ones.  I'll come back tonight when I get home with the list.  For sure a Revell 1/144 Su-37 Berkut and Revell 1/144 Mig 1.44 MFI.

Thanks,

Chris

Milairjunkie that is some savage work on that weapons bay, brilliant.

Dre the Mig 3 looks great, I have a pain looking at them in whitewash. If I ever get to mine it will have to be the tiger stripe I posted a while back.

Good luck to everybody as this is shaping up into  a great GB.

Terry.

terry35

Milairjunkie that is some savage work on that weapons bay, brilliant.

It's not bad, but when you consider how much some people are cramming into small fighters it's not that great.

As soon as I get the intake bodies ready, I'll be able to move onto really getting this thing together. I've tried to sort the earlier problem that I had with the intake floor by using melted styrene to build up the corners - I put some sprue scrap into liquid glue & left overnight in a sealed jar & used the resulting "liquid styrene" for the repair. It's the first time that I've done this & it worked out quite well, although the consistency might have been a little better (I think I may have used too much glue);

The intake bodies are ready to go together now, the red sections on the lower intake edges are protector put in place by the ground crew;

Apart from flaps & slats, the wings are built. I used liquid glue on all the rear most joints which are not that obtrusive & I,m going to use a touch-n-flow with plast-i-weld on the leading edges - this should hopefully give me a nice little bead of melted plastic so that I can easily sand the leading edge to get a smooth joint-less finish;

The fuselage was slightly warped when it arrived, so it's spent a few weeks taped together to straighten it out a bit, although the weapons bay slots are still a bit on the wavy side - hopefully when the bay interiors are fitted, it will straighten this out & add a bit of rigidity. A harmless pilot with a winder for scale;

Here you can see a General Electric powered White Swan, with all high lift devices deployed for take off (the engine nacelle is a J-79 from the B-58, again for some size perspective);

As a side-note, the multicolored, much painted paper in the background of these photos are the leftovers from some heavy wallpaper. I've got about 3/4 a roll of this stuff kicking around & it's great for painting on, acrylics absorb into it & dry very quickly & it can just be rolled up at the end of shift.

Milair- what scale is that again?   It looks like it's going to gigantic when finished.

Gonna have to "borrow" that liquid styrene idea, too....

Dre

Milair- what scale is that again?   It looks like it's going to gigantic when finished.

It's 1/72, but even at that it's going to be big - 750mm long with 770mm span. I really don't know where I'm going to put her when she's finished, but I'll worry about that later............

Dre

Gonna have to "borrow" that liquid styrene idea, too....

It's one of these "black art" things that I've been meaning to try for a while, it seems to work quite well, but the smaller / finer you can get the styrene before starting, the quicker & more easily it will mix - even after a day I still had some lumps in the mixture!