JFVicente

hi again, Pierre! You are correct about those air scoops. They must be omitted too. And about the colours, I suppose you mean the colours for the three tone scheme for the spanish birds. If so, and if I am correct, the Esci intructions were very accurate, so I will go with following combination: FS33531 for the sand, FS30219 for the brown and FS34079 for green, with FS36622 for the underside grey. Or, according to the instructions on Series Españolas decals, you could go with FS20400 for sand, FS30140 for brown, FS34079 for green, with FS36622 for the grey. HTH. Juan

Hi pbaudru! nice kit you have here! Just a quick observation. If you are building a spanish SF-5 you must omit the arresting hook that is not present on them. Wait to see it painted, keep that good work. Cheers from Spain. Juan

Hi again! And many thanks Marcus and roadrunner for your comments. I ´m back with a little new update. So here is the comouflage finished with the help of the masks provided in the Begemot Decals set: As can be seen the kit is gloss coated yet... I also painted the metalic areas and they were slightly treated with some Tamiya clear blue and orange. I will apply a further treatment to this area with Tamiya weathering pastels... And the decals were applied, together with a miriad of stencils: Ordenance and pilons were also painted and decaled: And that´s all for now. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. Juan

Hi again! Next step was to apply the gray tone in the same manner: And then the dark blue: and here we have the camo done: The I satrted painting the special livery for this particular arircraft: That all for now. I will try to update the post in the following days As always suggestions and criticism are welcome. Juan

So, hi again! Al this done, I was finally able to give the first coat of primer: And then I could start with the the painting procces. I applied a very thin coat of my own mix to produce the light blue: And the, using a slightly darker shade of that blue I preshaded the panel lines: Then, I applied a slightly lighter tone of the blue on the centre of the panels: Followed by few layers of the original blue until it was unified enought: The effect that I achieved with this is very subtle at this moment but at a latter stage when I give a wash to the entire airframe it will be enhanced. More to follow on few moments again...

Errr... Good evening again. First of all, I must say that I am really sorry for having left this build neglected for so long. So I will try to reverse the situation now. With the fuselage closed and all the major asembly done I added some minor details, like this little surface on the rear of the wing roots: And reformed that bullet shaped antenna on the left tail fin: More to follow in a few moments...

Hi there! I have the same kit and also the Flightpath set, so I will be looking too... Waiting anxiously for your first update. Juan

Hi Tom! What has happened with nice nice built? RGDS Juan

Hi again! I,m here with a new update. With the most part of the work on the fuselage done, I started with the painting of the cockpit. Here is the result: And here with the side consoles: And with the instrument panel instaled: And this is the IP cover painted: On the next two pics you can see the cokpit installed on place. I found that, with the cockpit installed and with the IP on what seems (to me) its natural place, the IP cover is slighlty short and doesn,t reach to sit over the front panel, leaving a gap of about 1-1,5 mm. Perhaps Gregax could confirm this... So I enlarged the IP cover by adding some plasctic strips by the front part wich where recountored to match the frame of the part. maybe the pic could be more explanatory than my poor english... Also, I found that the Academy windscreen is sligtly small, both in high and in length. It,s totally impossible to install the HUD from the Aires set over the IP cover as it collides with the clear part... A friend of ARC forums kindly provided a new vacuformed one to correct this. Here you can see what he provided to me: The white placard just under the vac canopy is intented to represent the lower canopy frame, so the portion inside the clear one must be removed and thinned to shape, as shown on the next picture: As you can guess by this picture I managed to close the fuselage and install the nose cone... And that,s all by now. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. Rgds Juan

Hi Gregax! Nice to see that you are working again on that Flaker. Your landing legs look nice. Rgds Juan

And another one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-TESTORS-571-NORTHROP-B-2-STEALTH-BOMBER-AIRPLANE-MODEL-1-72-UNBUILT-/311528656298? Rgds Juan

Here is another one: http://www.ebay.com/itm/B-2-Stealth-Advanced-Technology-Bomber-F-117A-Fighter-1-72-Testors-1991-/301848278099?ul_ref=http%3A%2F%2Frover.ebay.com%2Frover%2F0%2Fe11021.m43.l3160%2F7%3Feuid%3D6aa14810e5bf431db297c9c0608f0d9d%26loc%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fcgi.ebay.com%252Fws%252FeBayISAPI.dll%253FViewItem%2526item%253D301848278099%26srcrot%3De11021.m43.l3160%26rvr_id%3D0 Cheers.

Hi friends, many thanks for your interest. exdraken, I can,t deny that I am a slow builder, as I really am, but I am even more lazy with this updates that with my building. In fact I have strated with the decaling step this weekend, so the building is far more advanced that is the post. Sorry. I will update it to its current update as soon as I found the time... gregax, I am not sure if I understand what you mean, with "paint the axleof the wheels". That subasembly is currently airbrushed and I only need to paint the details by brush. It could seem a bit scary, but I have done it previously on my 1/72 Su-33: You can see the almost finished WIP of this kit here: http://www.arcforums.com/forums/air/index.php?showtopic=267989&st=0 Best regards, Juan

Good morning and happy new year everybody. Many thanks Romain and Breaker for your interest: After all this time I am here with anew update. This Academy kit lacks many details in some areas, especially in the area around the engines, so some of them were added from scratch: As you can see in the following picture, the photoetched parts from AMUR correct the dimensions and shapes of the air intake grilles. Also noticeable in the pic is the need of filling the gap between the fuselage and the intake. Pharhaps some better adjustements by my side could have prevented this... In the following photo you can see how academy depicts the area behind the front gear bay, where the retracting strut sits when closed, flush with the rest of the airframe. Here must be a little hollow to harbor the said leg, so it was carved and some detail added Back to the engines area, this time by the lower face, some panels where filled and re-engarved with a slightly different shape and also some drain pipes were added, here is the right engine. And here the left engine, where I rebuilt the APU exhast vent: As I am planing to depict the horizontal tail surfaces dropped backwards, as is their natural position when on the ground I enlarged the structured that penetrates into the lower of the tailfins and engarved some details: Also added some plastic card on the pivoting area: And that,s all for now. Stay tunned for more progress the next week. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. Regards. Juan

Hi again! It has been a long time since the my last update, summer, job and that kind of things... But I have been able to move forward with the project, so here you have a little progress: Painted the main wheel wells. Here the right one: And the left: Also painted the out side of the air intakes, as these are part of the wheel bays: I also painted the inner parts of this trunks. If you remember they were built from scratch: And they were fitted into place: A further addition to the to the aftermarked goodies that I am using on this kit arrived by mail on this beautiful old fashion envelope: Coming within a sheet of PE details from AMUR Reaver: Those part are very thin and flexible. They correct and enhance some surface details on this kit, such the grilles on the intakes: And the area behind the gun nozzle and other little details: After I was able to install the intakes: That,s all for now. I will be posting more progress on the next days. As always coments and opinions are very welcome. Rgds. Juan

Hi again and many thanks Breaker for your comment! Well, this was my intention with those landing gear legs, to be able apply a sharpest wash and paint job.... So I continued adding details to the legs, some from scratch and some rescued from the original parts. This is one of main legs from the 1/72 Zvezda Su-27SM: Zvezda has provided that triangular detail on the upper end of the leg, a detail ommited by almost every producer. So I decided to try and repro it, even it will be almost unseen: More details added: And then came the inevitable task of wiring the legs: Then I detailed the front landing leg: This is the retraction strut of the front leg, as provided by Academy, very crude and innacurate. So I made my own: Finally to end with this update, here are the main landing bays primed. I have noted some imperfections but will deal with them once I have both upper and lower fuselage halves joined: That,s all for now. I am currently painting the cockpit and the wheel bays. Will try to update by the end of the week. Comments and sugestions are welcome. Rgds. Juan

Hi gregax! Nice cockpit! Also I see that we have taken the same aproach with the improvement on the wheel bays... Keep that good work Rgds. Juan

l! I, m here again with anew update. I have been focused on detailing the area around the wheel bays. Using thin plasticard, thin rods of plastic and some electric wire I ended up with this: A closer pic of the area. That red dot is a presure gauge that I will be detailing with some spare decal or painting it on black: Also, I have scratchbuilt this couple of pieces that will be attached inside the intakes, as this details are visible through the opening I that showed in the previous update. This is a kind of resemblance of the area, and I think that I have done it slightly overscaled, but will do the part: Back to the mainwheel wells itself, once the joints were filled and sanded, i installed those little quarter oval resin parts just in front of the wells: And I was able to install some resin pipes that the Aires set provides as separate parts for further detailing of the area. you can see them in the following pics. I have painted those pipes with a non permanent marker to make them more noticeables. Here the left bay: And the right: A word of caution here. Altough you can see only one pipe on this pic, it is made from two sections of resin. On the Aires set the placement for those said sections is transposed: part 14 must go where the instructions says 13 and vice versa, therwise they would be impossible to locate them on place. Still there are a couple more of resin pipes on the set, but those must be installed on the rear end of the wheel wells and they sink into the intake trunk, so I, m leaving them for a further step, onve the trunks are attached to the fuselage. Next step was to improve and detail the main wheel legs, as they look very poor to me as provided by Academy. On my copy of the kit, said legs are poorly molded, being almost oval shaped more than circular, and with some big seams resulting from a poor injection. Also the detail is incorrect an very soft to my like. So I grabbed a couple of perfectly rounded lenghts of sprue from another project, cutted them to the required lengnth and added those strips around them to simulate the details around the legs: As you can see, those strips are made from the backing tape of the well know by any modeler Dymo tape. i have found it to be very thin, flexible and it works fairly well with CA glue. A further adition to the after market collection for this project was the gorgeous Brassin wheels set, as I in any way I was going to be able to replicate such level of details provided in this set: The only part that I will be using from the original legs is that below the strut. the area between the red painted sgtripes must be solid, so I carefully filled it with CA glue. A new strut was added from another piece of sprue(the short green length in the following photo) And then added a couple of parts of PE that is provided in the wheel set from brassin set. Here are my new reformed legs. And finally for today a couple more of pics of the legs with some more resin and PE parts added: As you can see the inner resin hub, with the detailed brake system look very promissing. Andinstalled is the scissor link made from resin too: I have some more work done on this legs, mainly from scratch, but failed to upload the pics to Photobucket, so you will have to wait until the next update. Would really like to hear your opinions and suggestions. rgds. Juan

Outstanding job! And your WIP has been very illustrative. Rgds Juan

hi again! Hi Gregax. Many thanks for the advice. As I am still working on the lower fuselage I hadn,t notice such thing by now. I have checked my references and as far I can see it,s most a matter of removing some lines, scribbing some new panels and repositioning some others, but nothing really serious... hi logical! Well, if you are willing to use those wheel bays on your Flanker, I would really encourage you to do it, despite your lack of experience on plastic surgery. It is relatively easy if you follow the steps that I have shown here... Will try to update my WIP this next week. Rgds. Juan

Outstanding job, Romain!!! Gorgeous! Rgds Juan

Nice work, friend! Slightly too much clean from my point of view, but very nice. Rgds Juan

Nice job!!! The painting looks awesome to me. Keep us posted Juan

Hi again! And thanks James for your interest too. Hera is a little new update. I have been working on the air intakes. If you want to show some part of the intake duct, firstly one have to clean the interior of the parts from ejection marks and those absurd alignment pins that Academy has produced on the very front end of the parts. So some sanding is necesary: My intention is to represent the variables doors raised, so only a minimum part of the duct will be visible. Said ramps are provided by Academy by PE elements. Thought they are very oversimplified: I found this "mesh" around home. It,s a piece of some kind of synthetic fabric from an old toy. I cuted some pieces of this and glued them by the back of the PE parts: Now they look much busier to me. Next I reworked the upper variable ramps, as they are slightly oversimplified as provided by Academy. So I glued some pieces of styrene sheet on them and then I scribbed few rows of rivets with the Trumpeter tool. Hope those tiny hole will be noticeable once painted... The exterior face of the intake trunks is part of the main wheel well, once the rear doors are closed. Here we can find this recessed area (marked with pen) that, seems to me, is where the legs hinges: I removed the said area with the inintention of give them more deepness and add further detail by scratch. So I added some strips of styrene by the inside and then blanked them again with styrene sheet: I also opened the panels marked on the following pic. On the real thing they are holes with some elements protruding from them, so I will be adding some detail by scratch too. And that,s all for now. Coments and suggestions are very welcome. Rgds. Juan

Hi! Many thanks rom and gregax for your kind words. Gregax, I will try to produce a WIP as detailded and informative as I can. It,s always a god thing being useful for someonje. Rgds. Juan