Sebastijan

a rather poor out of focus and underexposed photo and details about 10times bigger than real may not be actually representative of quality.

With some time off, being on home readiness every second week, but parenting still taking a considerable chunk of it, I managed to move forward with my Il-102 build. K-36s painted up and ready for installation. Il-102s heavy wings and tail design scream of a tailseater. Combination of lead fishing weights and Uschi van der Rosten Three Green in the nose will hopefully do the trick. Instead of adding engine pods after the fuselage is closed, I'd rather install them before that, thus easily pressing them together against the fuselage surface and minimize the possible gaps. The fuselage is together and cleaned, and I am now working on smoothing out the tail connection to the fuselage.

There's two narrow aluminum strips on the canopy centerline extending from the rear frames for both pilot and RIO about 2/3 forward - crew protection from lightning strikes. If there's a single line through the whole canopy in a scale model kit, that's the result of moulding process and should be eliminated.

Since I started using MrPaint paints, I don't gloss anymore... no problems with silvering, even without polishing.

Thank you, guys!

My first 2020 project finished. The model itself was finished in the last days of 2019 but I needed a bit more time with accessories and the base. In progress shots: https://vvsmodelling.com/2020/03/07/zvezda-172-mig-29smt-fulcrum-build-article/ Built article and full gallery: https://vvsmodelling.com/2020/03/08/mikoyan-mig-29smt-fulcrum/ Some photos for the flavor 😉

The cockpit and gunners position are reasonably detailed for the scale and the decals nicely printed to bring out all the little details. The rear gun assembled and painted and waiting for installation into the rear turret. And the infamous K-36 seat. Anyone that built recent Modelsvit kits have come across one of these. 23 parts for a seat in 1:72! You may have asked 23? He must have made a mistake! No, here's a sprue photo next to a completed one. All those parts go into one seat! But it looks damn fine out of the box.

Thanks for the interest! Ken, I've seen the Il-102 again in August when visiting MAKS - the grey is now quite weathered compared to your photos where it appears quite recently repainted. Anyhow, time for a small update. Il-102 main landing gear was stowed in such gondolas. Multipiece affair but it goes together rather well and fits perfectly into the wings. Also nicely detailed with combination of raised rivets, engraved lines and delicate interior frame work. So, if you wish to pose open bomb bays, you have to cut the doors out of the lower wing half; Just carefully follow the engraved line with a scriber and you'll be fine. The result of the cut bomb bay doors. Pretty neat result with the help of that engraved line on the inner side. You have an option to either build the aircraft with closed or open bomb bays. If you choose the later, you have to install the bomb bay sidewalls onto the inner side of upper wing half. Again like MLG gondola, nice interior detail and perfect fit.

properly degreaseing the surface (I use IPA) and smooth the surface using polishing sticks and/or cloths - not to high shine but basically to the natural finish of the unpainted plastic. Next step is proper paint application, which is as important as surface prep work. And from what I am seeing, it is the main cause for uneven surface and consequent silvering of decals. dnl42 just described this perfectly. And yeah, I am using MRP lacquers.

None. Use a quality semi-gloss paint and do a proper surface prep and you'll safely skip this layer on your model.

Mr.Paint. Gunze (now Mr.Hobby) are very good as well and I've heard of good things about Hataka and Akan lacquers. But Mr.Paint for the huge selection of paints, ease of use and excellent properties, are no.1 on my list.

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.