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Hi everybody, I have finished my GAZ Tiger recently, a very nice kit from Zvezda. It was a joy to build, with a very good fit of the parts. Colours from AK interactive, slight weathering with pin/panelline wash, a bit of oil wash, drybrushing and pigments. Build log: Now on to the pics. Thanks for looking! Have a nice day Nick

Wouldn't feel right going through a whole whirlybird GB without at least one appearance from this Russian manufacturer who chose their own route to cancelling torque reaction - who needs tail rotors when you can have twin counter-rotating mains? No idea when (if?) I'll get to this one, but I'm laying down a place holder to give me some impetus to at least have a go. Kit is from Zvezda with a striking painting of the crew mid-rescue. The box doesn't mention the type beyond Helix D but Wiki came up trumps, it's the Ka-27PS, a dedicated SAR version of the original Helix A ASW helicopter. Inside the box you get the full original ASW kit, plus an extra sprue with the new parts needed for this version. Decals are for two versions, the box top one belonging to the Russian Navy's Northern Fleet, and one from a Russian Government rescue service in exactly the same scheme but with a big banner on the door instead of the saltire and polar bear markings carried by the navy. I've had a read of the instructions and there's nothing too taxing in there until the final stage where the twin rotors come together. Think I'll just work through and burn that bridge when I get to it. Andy

Good afternoon all, The latest off the production line: Zvezda's 1/144th scale Boeing 777-300ER finished in Emirates' livery using 26-Decals. This kit is by far the best airliner model I've ever built - it fell together and it's the first time I've ever built a model where not even the tiniest bit of filler was needed. Detail is also very good and a huge step up from the old Minicraft Triple Seven kits. 26's decals were a pleasure, too - all in all a very enjoyable build. DSC_0018 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr DSC_0010 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr DSC_0021 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr DSC_0025 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr DSC_0023 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr DSC_0007 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr DSC_0027 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr DSC_0004 by Thomas Probert, on Flickr Best regards to all, Tom

Starting a new build, thought it might get interesting. Hopefully I'll get some relief after building some Eastern Express 'no fit no sense' kits. This is called the ultimate kit with the flaps, gear and even opened door options, so I'll try to go with the flaps down/doors closed/struts compressed config, decal windows, nothing too fancy. It's a total mess in the box, an unidentifiable pile of leading and trailing edges, total of six engines (in case what?) 3 IAE and 3 CFM, probably due to technological reasons for conversion from A320 to A321. Any advice is welcome while I'm sorting it out. Decals are from aerodeka.ru website, they're completely new to me and I'm excited to check them out. But the guy was nice enough to me to make A320->A321 Niki livery conversion at no cost, we'll see. Cheers, Steve

Hello there! So here we are again with a "trip report" and whats the story? in 2017 my former employer airberlin went bankrupt. Very soon it was clear that easyjet was about to aquire most of the operation out of my homebase Berlin (TXL), so that was the only company i wanted to work for in Berlin - and lucky me got a job with ezy in 2018. When i started flying again i met a lot of new people and one of the first contacts is now one of my best friends. So to cut a long story short, his first flight as a pilot on a commercial aircraft was on G-EZAM, which will be the plane built. Challange: it is his birthday present, so i have only time until mid of August. Some of you who might know me will quickly see the dilemma haha 🙂 I decided to go for the Revell A319 and started a week ago. instead of cutting a zvezda 320 or revell 320 neo, which are the better kits for sure, allthough with some weak spots as well. Never the less i will steal and copy parts of those kits. I wont be able to sort out all issues, but actually most of them. Basically i will fix all major items and only leave small inaccuracies - at least that is the goal. its all just limited to the time i have 😕 To start off i sprayed the fuselage halves in black, never did this before, i thought i could give this a try, the white plastic inside might be too bright. Now the first major thing is: i wanted clear windows all the way... since the shape of the Airbus windows is only a 100% correct on the zvezda A321, i had actually the worst window shape of all kits with my revell choice. I got a stripe of electrical tape (glue side is glossy) on the outside and filled the windows from the inside with clear resin. once i come back to the fuselage these will be masked with correctly shaped masks, made by my own. Results with the resin are perfect, i expected troubles here, but all worked fine. Got all the bubbles out with my vacuum pump.

Some WIP:

Okay, this needs some explaining to do. This B767 Zvezda was the first 'conscious life' kit, bought 10 years ago. Back then I had very little idea about the whole hobby industry size and put it together 100% out of the box. Probably skipped a lot of tiny details. During the recent shelf revision I took a closer look and it was painful to watch. While the principal assembly was okay there were gaps everywhere (no putty at all), the tailfin was split and wouldn't stick together even when I managed to cut it all open (thanks to a poor Zvezda glue), the KLM livery was all over the shop, I even question myself if I was on drugs at that time (probably, not), the paintjob was terrible. So she couldn't be on a display but I either felt bad thinking about throwing her away. A decision was made to do a salvage job as good as I can. I scraped all the paint off, filled all the gaps. Restored couple of spoilers, rebuilt half of the tailfin, made some antennas, that's as far as my skill goes. Then I've got British Airways livery from Ascensio (highly recommended if you'll ever come across it) and technical details sheet from Pas-decals. I had a long big doubt about the beautiful Ireland livery so I went on with the standard one (Chapham, I think?) Some mistakes I couldn't undo, I believe the MLG doors were mixed up and the engines are GE instead of RR of course which is a shame, but I decided to let it go. Also it lacks the nose ballast so it's tail heavy as expected Repainting was quite a painful job, took like A LOT of tape masking. There she goes in her second 'airline'. I'm quite satisfied with the result. The only photo I could found of the old look which kinda hides most of the issues in the depth of field. That nice take-off look!

Boeing 737-800 Royal Thai Air Force Zvezda 1/144 with Siam Scale decals Lockdown is really helping me finish the 'nearly completed' builds on my bench. This one has been waiting since March for all the aerials to be fitted. It is the Zvezda Boeing 737-800 done with the Siam Scale decals for the Royal Thai Air Force, rather than the boring 'UT' scheme the kit comes with. Lovely kit, decals were very good and easy to work with, though I added some Daco 737 windows on top of the kit ones, as they lacked the silver frames. Did you spot the interloper on the first photo? I couldn't help but add in 'Miniwings plastics' 1/144 Bird Dog in RTAF colours. A nice little kit entirely moulded in clear plastic. A few pics of it on its own: Thanks for looking John

Some nearly finished kits that I had lying around for ages, waiting for those final details to be added. I call them completed, for now.. Enjoy! Cheers, Luka

Hi all. Finally got myself an airbrush and opened up a new exciting world of pain and thinners and mixing paints and trying to wash the paint off the pants, haha. This has been a very random build, because I came across the Tu-134 as a cheapest kit available and I instantly thought I always wanted one. The build was quite an easy one except for the canopy fit, probably. I missed the fact that rudder is put between the two halves of the fuselage, which is an unusual feat. Eventually had to force it in place and do some repairs. The navigator glasshouse does not fit at all (which I was aware of). I tried to keep the two halves of the fuselage unglued forward of the nose gear bay and cockpit windshield, fit the the navigators canopy and fill the gap, but it didn't work quite as expected. Still maybe this is the way around for someone with a rather better skill and patience than me. There is a huge rant over at the russian model community side about the inflight stabilizer angle being -1.5 or something degrees down as a must do. Well I got it slightly nose down and that's about it. Once again, airbrush is a great excitement for me, being a trained painter I know a thing or two about colour mixing. First time tried and oil wash (with the terror and relief!). Didn't bother to glue back an underside antenna because it won't stay. And yeah, right side 'soviet bird' logo somehow slid after applying, don't know when Enjoy I've decided to paint fancy lemon yellow spinners My cat in 1:1 scale

So early this year I decided to start on the Zvezda Fw 190A4, the main reason being that being such a simple kit it would keep my frustration levels down while building a parallel "short run" Brengun Typhoon in parallel (I had started an RS Airacobra but thought better of doing 2 tedious short run kits together). The subject aircraft I was planning was that of Siegfried Schnell, a quite photographed airframe. It's on the cover of Jagdwaffe Vol 4 Section 1. The spanner in the works once I started was realising that Zvezda had modelled a late model A4 with cooling slats and solid wheels. The second issue could be managed as I had a set of perforated Barracuda wheels and wheel cover but the slats were an insurmountable issue. As I had already started on the project, I had a look through the decal bank and there were no other appealing subjects so I ordered the new "Exito" sheet on 190's which contained an interesting airframe from 1/SG101. The Zvezda kit is quite nice in most ways but does have a few issues. First is the spinner - it's too long. The prop is also a bit thick. I replaced them with a set of Barracuda items I had handy. The canopy might have been ok but I've read it's made of some non standard clear material and was moulded in one piece. I used a spare Hasegawa windscreen and a Falcon canopy to open up the canopy. There were a few sinkage marks in the kit, the most obvious being in the underside of the wing fairings. I missed some near the wing tips as they weren't so obvious until the kit was completed. Once I finished the Zvezda kit, I really did want to model Schnell's aircraft since I had all the reference and decals lying around so it was back to using the old Tamiya A3. I splashed out and got the Quickboost conversion though I think you could just scratch up the new fin/antenna setup. The Tamiya kit fell together as Tamiya kits do. Here's some pictures of both together. The Zvezda kit is a "snaptite" but is actually quite well detailed. I removed some of the snap tite plugs to get tighter joins. In addition the updates already listed, I had to remove the underwing outer cannon bulges and guns as this airframe had outer guns deleted. A shame as reports say the bulges are more accurate in shape than the Tamiya kit. The inner cannon were replaced with Master set as an experiment after I knocked off the plastic ones. A bit of work getting them aligned. The pitot was replaced with the Master item as well. The head armour and support are also off the Hasegawa kit as the original has no support and less detail. Exito have really gone to extra lengths with their material. The instructions are basically A4 art profiles on one side with detail placements on the other. Decal quality is good and the subject matter is a bit different to the normal run of the mill. The Tamiya kit is probably well know to most Luftwaffe modellers. I've built it once before as an A2 which externally looks identical. I still have yet to build an actual A3 but I've backfilled this kit to do that in the future. The only changes to the kit were the quickboost fin tip to represent the A4 aerial arrangement, a Quickboost pitot tube and the outer MG's which were leftovers of the Master set used on the Zvezda kit. Schnell's machine is interesting as it has asymmetrical Eagle patterns on each side of the exhausts. The decals are from Aeromaster who must have only had photos of one side as they only supplied the simplified pattern of the starboard side. Fortunately the Tamiya kit has an option with the full Eagles head though the whites in it, as is common to Japanese manufacturers, is more cream than pure white like the Aeromaster sheet. Cheers Michael

Another in a row made Russian plane. La-5FN by Zvezda. The model is correct for operation. The model I worked for is a 1943 plane from the Ukrainian front. Here's the picture.

With the RUFE done and humming with its motor driven propeller its time for the next time. I had a chance to drive to the storage and pick a couple of kits. The A-90 was not on my list but did catch my eyes when looking for something that can be built quick but also can be complicated/AMS'd to a diorama. I don't have any water/gel materials - this will have to wait till they lift the lock-down and the financial situation will be a bit more clear (no shopping as of now) - so it will be a kit only venture at this stage.

I love this model! I had such a great time with this kit, as it provides a lot of options for interesting markings, as well as ability to build it with a fully exposed engine. The kit is fairly well detailed (alas the inner gear door actuator arms are missing) and is simple to build. Clear bits are a bit foggy, but that actually worked to my advantage, since I wanted to build a pretty weathered airplane. The model is painted with Gunze and Tamiya paints and weathered with oil dot filters. I used Tamiya weathering master makeup for the wheel dirt. The only extra bit was some generic PE harnesses I found in my decal stash, of all places. Not sure what they were initially for, but probably not a yak. all my photos were lit the same way, why can't I get this kind of clarity and light level consistently? Thanks for looking.

I'm calling it finished...... It's a great kit - if a little 'over engineered', but it looks good when finished..... Close up of the bridge and two missile launch tubes... The bow - with optional open torpedo loading hatch.... The rear end - with replacement 3d-printed props.... It's a big beast - and is being upgraded and kept in service to replace the too-expensive Typhoons. The Delta's are named after Russian cities - in this case Tula - note the city crest on the front of the bridge... Excellent replacement propellers from Michael Fuller..... The WIP thread is here...... Ken

Canada and Scotland have strong historic connections and air links between the two countries have existed for almost as long as transatlantic flying itself. In May 2015 Westjet began seasonal flights between Halifax and Glasgow which was their first UK destination. The inaugural flight was by C-GQWJ, an ETOPS 737-7CT, which acquired a unique tartan fin for the occasion. She carried the tartan for about six months before reverting to the standard livery. The Zvezda kit was a straightforward and enjoyable build and I was aware of its few minor issues from my previous build of the 738. The only points worth mentioning are some sink marks mainly on the rudder and stabs and the rather indifferent fit of the engines to the wings. I added an adapted BraZ satcom fairing and a few small details from plastic sheet. Pitots, aerials and a couple of other small items came from a Daco PE set. Paint is Halfords Appliance White and Racking Grey with Revell and Tamiya metallics. One of the drawbacks of a large stash, whether kits, decals, paints or anything else, is that you are liable to buy something without realising you already have it. I’m not sure how i did it but when I started the model I discovered I had both the V1 and 8ADecs decals for this livery. As it turned out that was a good thing because I was able to pick and choose the best bits from both sheets. The fin decal, Canadian flags and registrations are V1 and the rest is 8A. Detail decals came from the spares box. It also yielded replacement “ship numbers” for the nosewheel doors which are oversized on both sheets and the small “700” on the underside of the nose just aft of the radome which both decal makers have missed. Windows are by Authentic Airliners. Thanks for looking and as always constructive criticism is welcome. Dave G

Slightly older completion but finally got around to some photography. Zvezda's 1/72 Su-33 out of the box... almost. I cut up the inboard leading edge slats and the horizontal stabilisers to pose them more realistically. I also opened up some holes not mentioned in the instructions and used the spare/optional pylons for the inboard wing stations. These are pretty unrealistic as they are rarely used due to take-off weight considerations, but I'll be damned if it doesn't look imposing with 12 missles hanging off it! This is my largest and most complex aircraft project to date, the decision to have it folded was as much shelf space pragmatism as presentation 🤣 It's a fantastic kit and makes me want to build more Zvezda Flankers, but no idea where I'd put them! All brush painted with AKAN acrylics. These require some beating into submission for brush painting, the lightest blue especially took over half a dozen coats in some places. But I wouldn't have it any other way as their colour fidelity is so perfect, and no alternatives were convincing enough for me.

Probably not what most people would expect under this title 🙂 i dont't have a specific relationship to this aircraft, but to the airline and its country. One my good friends flew the last 737-200 in europe with for aviogenex and i m half yugoslav, so it was just a matter of time until the first yugos appear haha. It is the basic zvezda kit in 1/144 , which is quite ok, except for the missing flightdeck and clearpieces for lights. Still i found myself notching up the kit with smallstuff detail set, GA resin wheels and 26Decals. The build itself was more or less uneventful except for the horrible decals - i really like 26 stuff, and his support is awesome! But AFAIK these decals are made by BOA (i think 26's silkscreen prints are BOA and microscale). And they are really not the easiest to deal with, at least i had some trouble. First the cheatline is not aligned to the kit - kudos to Ray from 26 - he supplied me with another sheet to basically cut together the cheatline on the left side to match it to the windows - because i build clear cabin and cockpit windows only. I had some trouble with them , when i clear coated and masked them, several times i ve torn the decals off after demasking. either tamiya tape is too strong or the decals are not sticking to the surface - allthough chemically treated. Anyway, i had enough spares so i sorted it out. All paints are MRP, except Alclad metals, and tamiya translucent red and tyre black. Washes come from Abteilung 502 and tamiya. I scratched all lights in clear plastic, and i added static dischargers (too thick in my view, next time i will find a better solution). The landing gear from the kit is quite brittle and fragile - needs much attention. Clear coated with MRP super gloss, sanded down with tamiya sponges to even the surface and then polished it with micromesh until 6000 grid and then gave it a machine polish with tamiya paste. I didnt want a high gloss finish, cause i have never seen any Tupe like this. THe depicted aviogenex plane is from inbetween 1985-1986, where it got a new paintjob without faded red wingtips. hope, you maybe like it thanks for watching!

Continuing the lockdown builds with the fresh Zvezda kit of the A350-1000. I'm aware that Aeroflot has (and only will have) 350-900 and I initially planned a conversion, but it turned to be way too complicated than just shorting down the fuselage so I went with a kind of 'what if' Aeroflot 350-1000. Pas decals livery fitted fine but the livery turned out to be not so simple as I expected. I had to copy the decals for the tailcone masking of grey/blue border (second time lucky). The kit fits very well except for the cockpit windshield which fits horribly wrong. Probably should have gone for the decal one. Gone through every airliner modeller's trial and error of masking the windows with a silicone masking liquid ended up quite bad. Never again. Other than that it's an enjoyable build, highly recommended. *THAT* winglet two of my last build together, as a random coincidence they're exactly the same length 1/144 and just 40 cm apart in real life Cheers, Steve

Hey guys, here's my ISU. It was a fun kit to build, the instructions were just one sheet of paper. I replaced the plastic grilles with microdesign PE. The replacement tracks are trumpeters workable tracks and they go together quite nice. I think about making a vignette for this one with some angry Russians on top but that won't be anytime soon so I leave it here. Cheers, Ernst.

Old Zvezda model, but nothing is thrown at me but everything works. I'm satisfied with the work done, it looks nice in the showcase. Here's the picture.

Hi everyone, long time no see. Somehow I'm back into assembling kits, due to a lockdown, of course. So, this time it is the Zvezda's triple seven, arguably their best kit in the Emirates livery by the Pas-decals (Actually three sets of decals because kit decal is way too poor). Well, the build was relatively straight and easy. Some known flaws that I'm still not capable to fix (droop wings for instance). Quite a few mistakes of mine.. All in all I've learned a lot from this build and quite happy with the result. Cheers, Steve

This is my first serious model after my comeback to hobby after 7 years without models. Twenty years I built models of airplanes, and one time I decided to build ships. The model of battleship Sevastopol is built at the moment of the end of construction near Baltic shipyard wall at first two weeks of September 1914. As the main detail set, I used a North Star Models detail set for Sevastopol. In addition to him I used different etched and resin aftermarket detail sets: · Master 1/350 gun barrels set for Sevastopol-class battleships · North Star Models 1/350 long ladders · North Star Models 1/350 clamp-ladders · North Star Models 1/350 resin lifebuoys · 3 sets Flyhawk Model 1/350 IJN Brass Strip · Rainbow 1/700 Fixing rings of flues · Complect ZIP 1/350 resin six-rope whaleboat · Complect ZIP 1/350 resin 76-mm Lender AA-guns · Elf 1/72 aviation navigation lights · Begemot 1/350 Russia/USSR decal flags · special decal 1/350 Russian Empire Fleet flags and pennants Figures: · North Star Models 1/350 resin Russian Empire Fleet sailors at work – Part 1 · North Star Models 1/350 resin Russian Empire Fleet sailors at work – Part 2 Scratchbuild and improvements: · boat booms · flagpoles and jackstaff · ventilation pipes near anchor hawses · yards and platforms at foremast · steam engine speed indicators at foremast halyards · correct bow, rudder and propellers · forward garbage chutes · boxes for signal flags at aft superstructure · flagpoles at motor boats · air shafts for officer wardroom · ladders for crew at boat booms · relocate 3 forward pairs of booms for anti-torpedo net · made holes at motor boat funnels and funnel pipes · imitation of glass at windows at main bridge made by Microscale Liquid Decal Film · rigging made using by fiber of Spandex thread (analog of Infini lycra) · insulator at rigging made using by thickened paint Paint and weathering: · Gunze Sangyo Mr. Color paints · Gunze Sangyo Mr. Color semi-gloss lacquer · MIG neutral wash · AK Interactive Wash for deck · Waterline made using by Aizu Micron 1 mm masking tape Work on the model began in early 2014 and ended at the end of 2015. Total number of details - more than 2000: 292 plastic parts from initial kit, 753 parts from North Star Models detail set, 162 resin parts, 515 etched parts from over detail sets and 295 scratchbuild parts/details. This model took part in NAVIGA shipmodelling championships and cups from 2015 to 2019 in Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany and Bulgaria. The best result was 2nd place at European Championship 2017 Andrew SilverGhost

Here is my finished Zvezda Boeing 737-8MG(WL) in the Jet2Holidays livery with registration G-JZHK. I opted for this livery and registration as I flew on this particular aircraft back in 2017 and she was only about 4/5 months old at the time, you could still smell the newness. I’m also quite a fan of this livery, it’s effective and stands out just enough. It’s also identical to that of the American low cost carrier Allegiant and I tried to do some digging in to this. From what I gathered Jet2 leased 2 752s from Allegiant and they had just painted them, so Jet2 simply added the Jet2Holidays titles. I think there is also some history of European carriers fleet sharing with North American carriers when demand is lower, I know the TUI and Sunwing one is an example of this. The build was a simple enough OOB build, with the decals from RichW. This is my second set of decals now that I have used from Rich, after my BA 772. The windows are from AA. I don’t need to say much about the Zvezda kit, as it’s a good one, and goes together very well. The paints used were Halfords Appliance White for the fuselage, the blue is Revell’s 52 which I lightened with some white to try and match the shade more accurately to the real thing and then brush painted it to be fuselage and nacelles. The wings and stabs are Halfords Racking Grey and the metallics are a mixture of Revell’s Aqua range. The decals are excellent and fit the model brilliantly. I have a few more sets of decals from Rich, including a Qatar 777-200(LR) and TAP A320. I messed up the winglet decals though which I’m annoyed about. I’m also looking to do one of the BA World tails on a B737-300 as well soon. I am currently, working on my Qatar B772(LR) and VietJet A321, though I also have a Volotea A319 that I need to finish decaling. Anyway, I have gone on long enough now, thank you for looking and as always any comments or constructive feedback is very welcome. Regards, Alistair

After some weathering I consider this one finished, it was a joy to build and paint. You can find the "making of" in the WIP section right here. Cheers, Ernst