Sebastijan

New year, new project. A&A released a 1:72 model of this very unique looking aircraft last year. Having its roots basically in WW2 era Il-2 Sturmovik attack aircraft, it is so much more bizzare, that this aircraft of archaic looking design was still marketed in early 1990s. Only one flying prototype was made, which made around 250 flights in period between 1982 and 1984 when engines livese expired. The aircraft can now be seen as one of the gate guards at Gromov Research Center at Zhukovski, Russia. The aircraft being of quite a modular design, I've decided to skip the usual assembly flow of starting with the cockpit and tackled the engine nacelles first. The engines are designed to include the full length intakes and exhausts. While the turbine blades look convincing enough, I was less impressed by the intake itself. Composed of two halves, the plastic was too wide to fit around the curvature of the turbine. I ended up shaving away around 1mm of plastic on each mating surface to achieve a fit. However this worsens the seam itself which will have to be carefully puttied and sanded from the inside. A job I am not really looking forward. While turbine blades are normally of a darker metallic colour, I normally paint them in a much brighter aluminum and put on a black wash to accenuate the shadows. The reason is, that these parts are sitting deep in the intakes where little light reaches them and are thus more visible. The whole engine assembly dryfitted to the interior of the engine nacelle half. While the intake parts itself had a more serious fitting issue, the middle connecting tube and the exhaust itself were much better fit. Especially the latter with a single piece outside part helps to hide any seams on the inside.

Thank you, guys! Well, she is finished but I will post more photos in the Display Case once I finish a simple base for her.

Since I am in a bit of hurry to finish this one, I concentrated on building instead of shooting progress photos, but here she is as of today. Oil paint weathering done. Hydraulic pipes on landing gear done. Ejection seat done. External fuel tank added as well as some smaller antenna (more to follow).

Thank you! The reason is simple - because the other two MRP paints aren't suitable for the specific airframe I am building. Those paints are greenish grey of the repainted examples, while mine is painted in original splinter scheme which was grey without any greenish tones. Be cautious about their standard MiG-29 paints as they don't really match the real ones straight out of the bottle.

I apologize if I may have offended you but yeah, you are right - everyone is entitled to their opinion. I much prefer reasonable "scale thickness" than a clunky piece of plastic - same goes for a visible seam against invisible seam. If that means I have to use my brain and skills to solve the problem, even better. I love such challenges and building many short run kits has made love the challenge. Maybe my point that intakes are ok is wrong because of that? If you'll read my review, you'll notice I have exposed a few problematic areas as well - for example, Zvezda's QC failed to notice they forgot to engrave the over exhaust fairings, which they've beautifully rendered on their first released 9.13 version. But reading your last post, I see a contradiction to your claim. I perfectly agree with you, but contradiction is, that in case of this MiG kit, you provided only a complaint and haven't looked for, or posted for solution. Simple dry-fit of those intakes immediately shows they may be tricky to assemble. I have, in response to your complaint, provide a solution that I didn't even try yet but should reasonably work. And I think this is one of the main reasons why your post triggered such a response as it did.

fuel tank is ok, but for an accurate full loadout you'd need either 4 R60s or 4 R73s - I've only seen mixed R60/73 loadouts for show purpose.

OK, I find this article rather amusing. Even more so, because you build a rather big number of models per year and I would expect "approach" with a little more skills. Thing is, There's at least two good reasons why Zvezda decided to split the intakes in such way (and IIRC they did the same with their Flanker models). One is, that with two piece intake, you can mould intake walls much thinner if you would make them one piece. OK, you're right, they could be made out of two halves with the split down the middle but what would that solve? Nothing. What it would add, would be a nasty seam quite visible down the middle of the interior while the current solution practically hides the seam from the prying eyes. And truth be told, it is completely easy to glue those intakes together. The fit is really good and all you have to do, is fix one piece to lower body of the aircraft with some tac material (like Blue or UHU Tac) so they will hold steady and then attach the other half and glue and let it settle in the desired position. And that if, you're clumsy. I haven't used Tac on any of my two MiGs that I've built so far. You're mentioning you've lost a lot of detail, but simple truth is, there are just a few straight panel lines in those areas, so again an easy rescribing job if you mess things up. The cockpit side parts, while you correctly defined are designed to cater for different subversions, while not perfect, don't require much putty if you glue them correctly alligned. And with water soluble putties on the market, it's an easy and clean fix. I really don't understand what your take on this kit is? I think it's a great kit and best MiG-29 on the market in 1:72 scale. You are complaining about things, Zvezda designed so to improve the kit and might need a little bit of modelling skill to overcome and at the same time wish for Matchbox thickness??? I bet you can still find cheap Italeri and ICM Fulcrums models on the market and maybe build those and leave the accurate ones to us? And if you're not convinced, here's my take on the build:

I've got no other solution but do something about it 😄 Yeah, the camo got my attention as well. There is a slight step, maybe a bit too pronounced by shadow in the pics. But there's one as well on the real deal, but in most cases, there's also the black antiglare painted part going by that line as well...

Thanks guys! A small update. Decals have been applied. I am using Begemot decals and I am having two issues with these. First is that some red stenciling, especially those with red X symbols are printed slightly too bold and thus became too noticable. The second issue is the clear carrier film. I am getting a strange effect on some stencil decals, that slightly resembles silvering, but it's not. Actually the colour behind the decals looks slightley brighter than the surrounding. Never happened to me before but it is what it is. I'll fade the decals anyway so I hope in the end, it won't be too noticable. Amigo Models exhausts were used in this build and they were painted in various shades of Mr.Paint metallic paints. I am quite satisfied with the result; current look is a bit vivid but after the wash, I am quite certain, the heat stained effect will be properly restricted.

Thank you! I've used Mr.Paint lacquers - MiG-29SMT Light grey, Light Ghost Grey FS36375 and Medium Grey FS36270

Didn't VF-114 arrived on station after the Desert Storm?

Well, I think I can safely say, most of the painting is done at this moment. Bring on the decals!

Good job, mate! Try to set the correct white ballance before next photoshoot (or after in edit) as the pics are way too warm and because the pics are underexposed due to black background, the photos really doesn't do her justice.

Cool work! I have a Fujimi A-4 prepared for KAHU conversion in Euro-1 scheme

Very nice work! Shame about the hard demarcation camouflage though.