Sukhoi Su-25 Ukrainian digital camo, OEZ 1:48

[telepatu]

Looks like I suffer from a ”builder’s block”.. I mean too many interesting kits in the stash to choose from. 🫣

When the group build was announced the first thought I was to continue my stalled Revell 1:32 F-18E. Then I started looking what else do I have in the stash that would fit in the GB. Slippery road, that one.

I found a 1:72 Tu-16 or Tu-22 that would be cool to do, maybe Egyptian scheme? Weirdornier Do-335 as a twoseater - ooh, real nice. How about a Ukrainian demo team MiG-29 1:48, or one of submarine hunter duo of SP-2 Neptune or S-2 Tracker in Agrentine colours or maybe a Argentinian Chinook? I even toyed with idea of doing a HMS Nelson, having two steam turbines powering to shafts,  might qualify as a “twin”. 😃

Finally I settled on old OEZ Su-25 in 1:48 scale, mainly because I’d like to test the Foxbot masks that I have coming in for Ukrainian Su-25 in digital camouflage.

The box is old enough to be a Czechoslovakian product. The kit was inside a plastic box, which had protected the sprues quite nicely during all these years.

Decals look quite old, but those won’t be used anyway.

Instructions are pretty compact, having only five steps for the constuction. The same plastic has been boxed by Eduard, so I’ll be checking the Eduard instructions for help if needed.

Parts don’t have any locating pins, so careful construction is in order. Detail is somewhat soft, but we’ll see how it turns out.

Something like this is the goal:

So another silly project. Every now and then I like to build some older kits.

At least this isn't from 70's, as far as I can see. 

-jani

[Martinnfb]

An old kit, but still, until the Zvezda's kit arrival this was the best looking su-25 out there. 

Cheers

M.

[Peterpools]

Nice choice and the digital cammo looks awesome.

 

[telepatu]

On 2/8/2024 at 3:23 PM, Peterpools said:

Nice choice and the digital cammo looks awesome.

 

Thanks. It'll be interesting to see how the masks work. I ordered similar masks for MiG-29 as well. If they work nicely, then I'll get some more. Somehow the Ukrainian digital camo looks really nice to my eyes. Too many brown+green spitfires, maybe?

[Jeff]

9 hours ago, telepatu said:

Thanks. It'll be interesting to see how the masks work. I ordered similar masks for MiG-29 as well. If they work nicely, then I'll get some more. Somehow the Ukrainian digital camo looks really nice to my eyes. Too many brown+green spitfires, maybe?

I agree the camo looks cool, and maybe way too many 109’s and 190’s?🤭

[telepatu]

Time for a long overdue update. This build has been going on quite slowly, the kit is fighting me all the way.

It looked good in the beginning, wings assembled and some primer sprayed on the cockpit parts.

There are only a few locating pins, the cockpit was tricky to get correct so I glued the walls to the fuselage first to have some control how it goes.

Looking at the landing gear gave me chillies so I decided to switch for a in flight mode. Surely the closed up landing gear doors would be easier?

Well... the doors were in one piece. That would have to be broken into three doors for gears down option. The fit was not so great.

While struggling with the cockpit and landing gear doors I managed to lose the ejection seat. Luckily I had a Verlindedn K-36 resin seat set sitting in the stash. Test fitting it to the partly assembled cockpit, not so great result

Since this will be a in flight model, I need to source a pilot somewhere. I guess the seat will be mostly hidden so the resin seat goes to "waste". I raided an Academy MiG-29 box for a seat. It should be close enough.

Here's the comparison between the Academy seat and Verlinden seat. Can you guess which one is which?

I decided to close up the fuselage and deal with the seat later. It looks quite possible to drop it in later.

 

Not all panel lines lined up nicely. Either the front ones lined up and the ones on the back did not or vise versa. I made the best of it and filled the landing gear door gaps with putty.

Next problematic bit seem to be the tail fin. We'll see how it goes.

Br, Jani

 

[Martinnfb]

Though go , but she is getting there. 

[Peterpools]

Jani

Some might nice work getting the kit to the stage you're at. A ton of work and I think you made the right choice going wheels up. No question about it; the Academy seat is on the left 

[telepatu]

Long overdue update to this build. I have done some painting during the last few weeks, but I haven't had time to upload progress reports.

Here is the main fuselage and all bits connected to it, ready for priming.

Here is the primed plane with the decals and the Foxbot masks that I will use.

Sadly the decal set does not contain the intake warning triagle thingie, which is quite visible. I don't think I've seen a digital Su-25 without it. Well, the decal set is a generic Ukraine decal set by DAN models. If I can't source it from any other kit I'll have to do without. 🤷‍♂️

 

[telepatu]

I had a long planning session or many actually on how to attack the masking in several layers.

In the end I decided to go from lightest to darkest colours. I painted the bottom and top colors with the best alternatives I found from my stash to the ones provided in the Foxbot mask set.

Next step is to mask the areas that remain with the lightest colour and get ready for the second grey.

The Foxbot masks were quite thick and they didn't want to conform to tight edges and corners. Tamiya masking tape provided some additional help. There are places where the edge is not as sharp as I'd like. Some touching up is expected once the masks are removed.

This picture shows the second grey layer painted.

I have two more layers of darker shades of grey to go.

However, this is as far as I can go during the group build time frame. I'll finish it later, time and life permitting.

I'm going to our daughter's graduation seremony in Scotland so I'll be away from the bench for a while. I really don't mind, builds come and go, but there are only a few occasions for university graduations 🤗 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

Have a nice Midsummer!

 

Br, Jani

 

[GusMac]

Looking good Jani.

Where about over here is the graduation? I hope the weather gets better for you as its been lousy for the last few weeks. 

[Martinnfb]

Looking great Jani, enjoy your trip, no rush to finish   Family first. 
Cheers

Martin 

[telepatu]

6 hours ago, GusMac said:

Looking good Jani.

Where about over here is the graduation? I hope the weather gets better for you as its been lousy for the last few weeks. 

Thanks!

The graduation is at Stirling uni, but it is still a few days away, 27th of June. We'll travel earlier so we can enjoy family time before and after. Travelling is not cheap so we try to maximise the fun whenever we can go

 

[Peterpools]

Jani

Right with Gus and Martin - looking mighty good. 

[GusMac]

Ah, Stirling is a nice campus with views of the Wallace Monument, etc. Weather is looking better for the end of this week and onward, so hopefully you're in luck.

[telepatu]

Wtih the extension to the deadline I thought I'll give it a go and finish this "frog" 😜

I painted the digital camo starting from the lightest colour first, then masking the next darkest colour ("Dusty Grey") and so on. I did the first two colours with one masking session. Then I removed all masks and masked out only the third darkest colour ("Mouse Grey"), removed all masks and masked out only the darkest grey, "German Grey". The result can be seen here.

 I like the end result, although I made the mistake by choosing too d ark colour for the dusty grey. I didn't have exact matches for dusty grey or mouse grey so I winged it. Dusty grey pixels were too dark, which lead to mouse grey being too dark again.. you can see where this is going... In the end, I ended up adding some black to the German Grey that I would have had straight from the bottle. Even then the Mouse Grey and German Grey are almost the same.

Removing the bottom masks revealed quite big paint lifting. I was a bit worried that the Foxbot masks would lift paint since the instructions warned about it. In this case it was the regular masking tape that did the lifting. If I recall correctly, this wasn't Tamiya tape but some other brand, might have been 3M. I need to be wary of that later.

 

Well, that can be fixed with another session with the airbrush.

I started gathering up bombs and fuel and whatnot to add them under thw wings. Looking good so far, still some painting to do. Even the pilot found his way near the plane. I stole the pilot from old Monogram F-102. I guess I need to build that soonish so I wouldn't have an incomplete kit in the stash 😆

The most observant readers have noticed that the canopy is not here yet. I left it out so I can paint the ejection seat and pilot separately, adding them once the big paint jobs are done. I put the canopy in a safe place in the beginning of summer. That location is so secure that now I cannot find the bugger anymore! 🤦‍♂️

So this build willl remain unfinished for a while. I'll paint the under wing stores and others just in case I find the canopy later.

I already glued the ejection seat in, otherwise I could have changed this into a diorama where the pilot is ejecting 😁

Speaking of dioramas, changing this build into this diorama has occurred more than once 🤣

 

Foxbot masks were quite nice to work with, they are quite thick and don't conform to tight curves too well. In those places I adde some extra masking tape. I have some more masks from Foxbot, looking forward to working with them in another projects.

Thanks for reading!

Br, Jani

[GusMac]

Pity about the missing canopy. I once did that with my wife's engagement ring and we found it 3 years later - I was not popular!

The digital cammo looks really good and I wouldn't have noticed about the colours if you hadn't mentioned it.

[CANicoll]

The Digital Camo really does look the part - nice job and I would not have noticed the color differences.  Great look!

[Peterpools]

Terrific work on the digital cammo - what an eye-catching scheme. Fingers crossed the canopy makes is hiding location known🤞

[telepatu]

Thank you for your kind words. Hopefully I'll find the canopy sooner or later. After all the time invested in this one I'd like to get it over the finish line. 😅