Ok, I got a lot of work done on the 1/72 Eduard MiG-15 over the weekend and finished it up last night. After filling the wing root seams with Gunze Mr. Dissolved Putty and just wiping them with a paper towel with Mr. Leveling Thinner on it, I sprayed Mr. Surfacer 1500 Black and then masked the wing walk areas before coating it with Tamiya Gloss Black.
Next up was the Alclad, and I used Polished Aluminum as a base coat, with Airframe Aluminum on the speed brakes.
I did some random shadows and highlights with Magnesium and White Aluminum, but kept it all pretty subtle, as my references show these Czech MiGs were kept pretty clean.
Then I went to shoot Tamiya Clear on it and accidentally dropped it. Instead of letting it fall 2 inches, I caught it and this happened.
I was just going to leave it since a roundel went there, but I decided to be an adult about it and really quickly re-shot it with Polished Aluminum.
Once I put the legs on it, I ran into another issue - not enough nose weight. I tried several things, mostly around crushing lead pellets and dropping them in behind the cockpit, but too many went farther back past the landing gear and didn't help. I got it close by super gluing them in place behind the cockpit, but it was still a tail-sitter.
Finally, I decided to try something else. So I cut up a bunch of pellets after I flattened them with pliers.
Then I pulled the ejection seat and took a drill to the cockpit so I could access the space in the weapons bay. You can see in the photo below I had some more cleanup to do around the cockpit area due to some super glue (this was just not my build in a few ways).
But that worked, and at the end, it sat firmly on the nose wheel, so I did the finishing touches and took it into the photo booth today at lunch.
This one was flown in 1953 by the Czechoslovakian Air Force, and actually downed a US F-84 that the directions say "probably" flew into their airspace. The American pilot bailed out.
Thanks for looking, and for hosting this group build. It's been a lot of fun, even though it's in that little scale I rarely dabble in :)
The first pic of the finished plane is fine for the gallery.
-BD-