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Playing in the Sandbox Group Build Sept 1, 2024 - Jn 1, 2025

What the Fox Bat?? Decals and missiles


GazzaS

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Ivan,

   That is some timely info as I'm up for another layer of paint.  I had a paint problem earlier caused by using a paint that was too matte and therefor too grainy.  And, the first time I painted the radome, the grey was too close to the fuselage color.

 

Thanks!

 

Gaz

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Back again, Folks!  It's weathering time!

gPdyOY.png

As the boss says...  I won't go crazy. 

I started with the missiles and the paintless area of the engines friday with oils over the Alclad.

8JkY99.jpg

 

And the missiles.  The real missiles have this deep blue heated/treated look to them on the fins that seems to have over colors in there, too.  So the missiles look a bit dodgy at the moment.

4BmpDW.jpg

The body of the missiles have some bare metal components I will try to emulate as well...  crappy picture...  Sorry!

I've found a Facebook site that has some good closeups of a working bird that I'm using to inspire my weathering.  The underside was inspired by this photo:

26733546_225436374666518_358492133686617

And here is my result.  The glare from the freshly laid oils subtracts from the subtleties I've tried to emplace.

qinuyL.jpg

 

And for you MiG lovers...  you know who you are...

A sexy shot lighted from below:

Dlx56V.jpg

 

Thanks for looking!

 

Gaz

 

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As I neared finishing with the oils on the belly, I came to the realization that I had put the cart in front of the horse.  Cuz the decals need to get weathered, too.  Anyway...  thankfully I hadn't weathered the upper parts, yet.

 

I spent a lot of time trying to get the missiles to look like this with washes:

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In the end, they look kinda sorta maybe...  I dunno...

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I also got Red 17 stenciled and marked with the Red Star:

2u3wSc.jpg

 

Today I noticed a huge gap in the instructions:  There are no decal placement instructions for the missile rails or missiles.  I have found the serial numbers for the missiles. and I applied the decals to the rails by using photographs and choosing which tiny decal most fir the bill. 

 

As you can see, there are a lot of stencils left.  But they are all for the bottom and might be ignored as I don't plan on looking at the bottom all that much.

 

Gaz

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Looking good Gaz. With some weathering the contrast between the grey fuselage and red decals will be reduced to a scale correct look.
It's hard to tell from the pic, but I would apply some steel pigments, maybe even mixed with a tiny little bit of copper pigments onto the wings of the missiles, the contrast looks a bit harsh to m eye :icon_eek:.

Cheers Rob

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19 hours ago, DocRob said:

Looking good Gaz. With some weathering the contrast between the grey fuselage and red decals will be reduced to a scale correct look.
It's hard to tell from the pic, but I would apply some steel pigments, maybe even mixed with a tiny little bit of copper pigments onto the wings of the missiles, the contrast looks a bit harsh to m eye :icon_eek:.

Cheers Rob

Rob,

   Thank you! 

 

I don't have any copper pigments.  But I could make a thin wash of Tamiya gold enamel.   I;m not really sure between which two parts are contrasting too much.

 

Thanks!

 

Gaz

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26 minutes ago, GazzaS said:

I;m not really sure between which two parts are contrasting too much.

Like I said, it's hard to tell from the pictures, but it seems to me that the contrast between the white fuselage and the blueish fins of the missiles is a little bit to harsh, but I'm maybe wrong about that (photos and Colour rendition, sigh). The picture of the real thing made me believe, that there is a metallic shine on the fins, that's why I mentioned metal pigments to rub in.
BTW these missiles look huge, like you could place a cockpit in and man it :D, almost as long as a cola can, wow, never noticed that before.

Cheers Rob

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2 minutes ago, DocRob said:

Like I said, it's hard to tell from the pictures, but it seems to me that the contrast between the white fuselage and the blueish fins of the missiles is a little bit to harsh, but I'm maybe wrong about that (photos and Colour rendition, sigh). The picture of the real thing made me believe, that there is a metallic shine on the fins, that's why I mentioned metal pigments to rub in.
BTW these missiles look huge, like you could place a cockpit in and man it :D, almost as long as a cola can, wow, never noticed that before.

Cheers Rob

I had hoped to retain some of the metallic look from beneath the washes on the missiles wings.  But it has disappeared under three coats.  This is all new terrain for me, as before I had only dirtied up some "metallic" parts before.

 

Also, I've noticed that many things change once hit with matte finish.

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Well, for better or worse, I'm nearing completion.  I've done all of the weathering I can think of, yet still trying to keep everything subtle.  So, as the oils dry and I wait for a few days to add a matte coat.  I'm not showing any pics because they'll detract from the finals.

 

I'm going to give my thoughts on the kit.

 

1.  I've been told it's the best MiG-25 kit around.  So, I won't argue the point.

2.  Early in the build you must add the landing gear legs.  This is unfortunate as they are exposed to damage from very early on.  Next time I will cut the nose gear off at a joint line, and pin it so that it can be added later.  I broke the very end of it off which caused many complications.

3.  Fit is not too bad,  In most cases, trimming the inside of the plastic parts will get you through.  Though there is a pretty bad one on the underside that has to be handled from the outside.

4.  A mixture raised and recessed surface detail on the dorsal parts.  Nothing insurmountable...  but this is 2019...  not 1969.

5.  The kit is made to be built with the droptank attached.  This means that the vertical spine on the belly has holes in it.  It would have been nicer had it been molded whole and left for the modeller to decide if he wants to drill them out.  They're in an awkward place, and in the end I just left them alone.

6.  There are cones to represent the axles of the wheels and stabilators.  Cylinders would have been been better IMHO as none of the recesses that the cones fit into are conical.

7.  Protrusions.  There are various small protrusions that are troublesome, or damaged by the plastic around them.  Except for the clear sprue, the plastic all comes in one bag.  This caused some fragile parts to arrive bent.

8.  Missiles.  They're pretty bad.  If the fins had been molded thinner, I probably could have been happy with them.

9.  Directions.  They're not too bad.  But there are no decal guidelines for the missiles or missile rails.  Fortunately there were some decent photos online to help there.

 

So...  nothing majorly wrong with the kit.  Just a few tiny things that could have been fixed by better quality control by ICM.  Not gonna consider myself blameless...  but there are times I wish that i could have gone back to the beginning and started a fresh kit.

 

Hopefully I can have it matte coated in a few days.

 

Gaz

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22 minutes ago, Ivan Ivanovich said:

I wasn't aware we were sharing the same foxhole back then... ^^

I wasn't aware the word had only one meaning or context.

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Well.  The MiG is finished.  However, I'm not very happy with it and I don't think it deserves a photo finish.  There were a few 'wanting to give-up' points, but since it was a gift, not completing it wasn't an option.

 

My main warning for those who build the kit is to be aware of the many fine protruding bits that are molded on the main parts.  The ICM plastic is very soft and these tiny parts are easily marred, bent, or broken off.   I replaced a number of them more than once.  I'm not a dainty person and there is a reason I often leave tiny, fragile extensions until very late in the build.   Hopefully some time in the future I'll build another one and avoid the mistakes that made this an unhappy completion.

 

My apologies to those who were following, hoping for a great looking finish.

I did use the model to help me try to take some better pictures with my IPhone.  Here's two:

T2TPZe.jpg

Fy4rNp.jpg

 

Gaz

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C'mon, it's not that bad, in fact I like the result and it inspired me to finally get me a Mig-31. Your Mig is looking badass as it should. On the other hand I can totally understand the way you feel, aren't we always our hardest critiques ourselves. Some builds are just not like we had hoped for, but mostly it is more like a bad taste in the end than facts, it's bad mojo. Others will see that with different angles of view and are not mojo effected. Your Bat cries for prey and that's the way it should be.

Cheers Rob

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I like what I see, the discolouration of the nose is nice touch. Everything seems to be as prescribed in the Motha Russia cook book. Gas , you have overcome challenges of this kit. I am certain that this baby deserves decent pictures in the gallery.

Cheers

M.

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  • 1 year later...

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