Phantome

Part 5: Decals Late night decal session done. The decals were of good quality and conformed quite nicely without silvering and also without curling (recurrent problem with some Eastern European decals). Unfortunately, the stencils are TERRIBLY printed. The text and symbols are simply too thick and therefore lose all subtlety. The red no step decals, for example, look like big red bars. I strongly recommend anyone making a serious attempt at a MiG-23 to get their stencils from elsewhere.

I am literally drooling. So much better than the upcoming Academy. And best is the fact that a C version appears on the cards next. Great time to be an Eagle fan

Part 4: Painting Relatively quick and straight forward. Akan paints were used from their MiG-23/25/31 set. They all went quite well. Post-shading was done with a lighter tone and later Tamiya smoke along the panel lines. Metallic bits were brushed with Citadel paints (old formula)

Part 3: Filling and sanding As I mentioned in the previous post, I decided against making a full effort at correcting this kit's alignment issues as it would be incredibly time consuming and wipe out a lot of the intricate surface detail. I used acrylic putty for the gaps, the most notorious one was the fin but in fact most gaps are quite substantial. I also swept the wings which I had originally glued; all the Floggers I've seen parked on the tarmac have their wings swept. The canopy has a Montex mask applied and was painted interior blue green so it can show up from the inside, then the rest of the aircraft was primed with Vallejo acrylic primer. I was far more pleased with the aircraft after priming as many of the kits failings are much less obvious.

Part 2: Fuselage There are alignment issues with the rear part of the fuselage and I found it impossible to get a nice fit even when gluing plasticard to make tabs. Sanding it until it's even has the downside of eliminating the very intricate panel lines and rivets so I decided to live with it. The nose section is slightly better but there are still some alignment issues. To be continued...

Late entrant to this GB, so here goes. Have been on a Soviet roll lately (a I-16 and three straight Fulcrums) so what better way than with the quintessential Soviet fighter of the 1970s: the MiG-23 Flogger. Alas, the poor Flogger has been very badly neglected in The One True Scale. The Hasegawa kit is old and has raised panel lines, as does the Zvezda. The Academy pseudo-copy of the Base kit has them engraved but is rather shoddy and has major accuracy and detail issues. RS Models came out with a short-run series which was quite expensive. In comes KP with what appears to be a long-run version of the RS kit. Alas, the short-run nature of this kit is obvious the moment you open the box: despite superb panel line detailing, you can tell that it's going to have fit issues among other challenges. Still, it's the best Flogger kit on the market pending what I suspect will be an inevitable Trumpeter offering. I decided to go for a MiG-23M using the M/MF kit. I noticed that the instructions make no differentiation of the M and MF versions so I leave it to the experts to tell us what is so different (besides the avionics). The kit has decals for a Soviet version (Red 01) in camo colors with an interesting dolphin mascot but for accuracy's sake, I will be painting this in standard 70s overall gray. One of the more famous vintage pictures of the Flogger shows one in gray with Red 12 numbering so I will represent its unit brother, Red 10 by flipping around the Red 01. I find it hard to believe that there wasn't a Red 10 somewhere in East Germany ready to face off against NATO! Paints used are Akan from their MiG-23/25/31 set and look spot on. Part 1: Cockpit Not much to say here, the cockpit has detail but it's quite soft and definitely feels short-run quality. It would have benefited from some instrument panel decals to go over the raised detail as it's hard at this scale to paint accurately. The soft detailing also makes it difficult to give it a wash so I skipped it.

Amazing work on this kit. Puts many of us to shame!

Well isn't the beauty of an open canopy that you can also build it closed? Seems like a no-brainer to me: please both. And no matter how thin the plastic is, it is not the same as seeing the cockpit unobstructed. I simply don't understand why Academy bothers to make the most detailed F-15E on the market and then pulls this stunt. Even more inexplicable when their previous and less detailed Mudhen did have that option. And slightly shocked nobody seems to mind...

What's the point of a detailed cockpit if nobody is going to see it? I hope GWH doesn't make this mistake. I really don't know who is the genius at Academy who thinks closed canopies are the thing these days.

Do I get a prize for correctly guessing they would only bother with a one piece canopy? What a waste...

I agree, a K version would be sweet! I suspect Trumpeter might give it a go first since they're quicker to release variants I am currently working on a Zvezda and it has advantages over Trumpeter... but also drawbacks. Some very silly engineering decisions in the Zvezda but it looks slightly more accurate. The Trumpeter fit is better.

Hi Dennis, I believe the Begemot set has the Belarus markings among many others. It's an incredible decal set and strongly recommended for Fulcrum fans as it has markings for 9.12, 9.13 and two-seater variants from almost all users. Thanks!

I built this one straight after doing a MiG-29S as part of a recent Mig-mania spree All the pros and cons of Trumpeter's Fulcrum kits are here. The pros: very good fit and exquisite surface detail. The cons: bad nose fit needs a lot of filling and sanding which will wipe out the detailing and require a delicate rescribe. It's annoying but not a deal breaker in my opinion. Trumpeter's narrow canopy issue is carried over to both the S and SMT kits despite having a chance to correct it since the upper fuselage is a completely different piece in each of its kits. Most glaring, however, is that only ONE Krypton missile is included despite the manual and box suggesting that two are in the kit. What was Trumpeter thinking?!? There are also only decals for one of them so something clearly got lost in the chain of command. This is really annoying as it forced me to use an asymmetric weapons load which I'm not sure the Russians do. Unrealistic? Probably. But at least I got to use this lovely monster missile. Decals were entirely from the kit, there's not that much variety anyway. Went down well with just one pass of Microsol after applying. Now, an issue with camo which hopefully will help any modellers having a go at the kit or the upcoming Zvezda version: the AKAN set is woefully inaccurate! I know, this is shocking, since AKAN is the gold standard for Russian colors. But I think they really messed up this one. There are two sets, one which depicts the older green splinter camo, and another which has the more recent grey splinter. The only difference in both sets is the presence of the classic Fulcrum grey/green vs the new dark grey. All other five colors are the same ones. The problem is that none of the other greys appear to match the real thing, they all have a beige-ish tint that is inappropriate. Which means the set is a complete waste of money since only the dark grey is useful (the other useful colors, the radome grey and the wheel green are in the basic Fulcrum set so if you have that, you're sorted). Since none of the greys matched the real thing, I used the following. For the light grey, I used Vallejo 36495. It looks the part although some SMT pics show it slightly darker. I guess you can't go wrong with any light neutral grey. For the medium grey I used the dark grey lightened up with the off white at about a 1:4 ratio. I was quite pleased with the mix. The dark camo is the dark grey which I do think is the only accurate color in the set. I am £17 or so poorer... but wiser. With knowledge of the camo colors, I want another go at the SMT so will probably do the Zvezda once it comes out next month. I especially like that it will come with a much greater variety of air-to-ground ordinance. Until then, enjoy the pics. Despite the issues, I am quite happy about how the kit came out!

Hi everyone, Have not posted much lately but that has not stopped the modelling. I'm on a bit of a Fulcrum spree and here's a go at the 1/72 Trumpeter MiG-29S painted in Ukrainian markings. I was aiming to build one of the gorgeous blue/gray camo birds but could not find decals to make any of the units that I have photographic proof of their existence. The next best was to build a possibly fictitious Blue 02 based on the Blue 01 in one of the Hasegawa kits and with the decals coming from the wonderful (and huge!) Begemot set. Comments on the kit and the build: Build: I love Trumpeter's Fulcrum kit. It has fantastic fit although some accuracy issues, namely a non-existent "step" between wing and fuselage, as well as a canopy that tapers too much in the rear, although this is not too obvious if left open. I don't think these are kit killers, and I strongly recommend it otherwise. However, my main gripe is the fit of the nose, the one area that truly deserves attention. It inevitably requires filling and sanding which will annihilate the panel detail and require a delicate rescribe. Zvezda found a much more convenient way of engineering the nose that avoids this. Aside from that, most of everything falls in well. Camo: I have the AKAN kit for the standard MiG-29 which provides the camo gray as well as the radome gray. The question was how to make the lovely Ukrainian light blue. After mulling over mixes I realized that it looks a lot like USAF Air Superiority Blue. Unfortunately, only Lifecolor makes it in acrylic and it looks a bit dull vs the Ukrainian shade. I then saw that Gunze has it in its Mr Color range (sadly not in its Aqueous range). I'm not a fan of spraying anything other than acrylics but I had no choice this time. The result was great and it is certainly a brighter shade than Lifecolor and closer to the real thing. Decals: Markings come from the Begemot set from an unrelated unit. The stencils come from the kit. Trumpeter's decals were excellent: went down like a charm after a single coat of Microsol and no silvering either. They were also super thin. Unfortunately, I am not quite sure whether they are 100% accurate. For example, there are no nose stencils (aside from the radioactive warning) even though these appear in pics. Also the prominent semi-circular stencil on the starboard fin is not included. Most annoying was that there were no fuel tank decals. I borrowed them instead from a MiG-29SMT kit. Conclusion: It's a great kit with the only major issues being the nose fit and the inaccurate decals. In this sense, the Zvezda is the kit to beat for a truly accurate MiG-29S. Unfortunately, the Zvezda has no rivet detail and therefore looks a bit plain in comparison to the beautiful detailing on this one (I have the Zvezda but have not built it). It also annoys me that Zvezda has the upper air intakes molded closed. Yes, I know they are typically closed when on the tarmac but they look so much cooler open. That said, there are no air-to-ground weaponry on this kit, which the Zvezda does include to represent the MiG-29S's modest ground attack capability. I hope to do a Zvezda kit in the near future and compare side by side. In the meantime, enjoy:

You can get a Fujimi F-4B on eBay for anything between £10-20. That's less than a round of pints these days. Why waste good decals on a mediocre kit?

Do you have a picture of the actual plane you painted? Because I looked at it under a lot of different lightings and angles and it did not look the part.

I have just repainted the light camo with Vallejo 36495 and it looks much better. Gunze 36495 is slightly darker but should still work well.

Indeed, maybe they are closer to the original green splinter scheme. I still find it strange why the colors are still the same in the other set except for exchanging the grey-green with the dark gray (the only color that does appear accurate). The last pic is interesting because it does show a very very light grey, more like an off white even. Most other pictures show that color clearly grey. The medium camo color still does not look nothing like any of the paints in the set though. I have found that mixing the dark grey and the light grey in a 1:10 ratio produces a very good approximation of that color.

Here's a good pic of a pair of SMT's http://www.airliners.net/photos/airliners/7/8/3/1707387.jpg Here's the paints from the AKAN set http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/ehAAAOSwYXVYyfhM/s-l1600.jpg Only the dark grey seems to match.

Hi all, I've been building the 1/72 Trumpeter MiG-29SMT and a while back bought the AKAN paint set for the splinter camo scheme. However, halfway through the painting process my question is... are these paints accurate at all? So far I've found AKAN to be extremely accurate and a pleasure to spray but the -29SMT paints look NOTHING like the real thing. First of all, it's a bit confusing that there are two sets, A and B despite the fact that at least to these eyes all SMTs have the same camo. Indeed the sets are identical except that one has Green Grey (73093) which is the classic Fulcrum color (which to me is the most accurate of any in acrylic of this hard-to-replicate color), while the other has a Dark Grey (73061) which appears to be accurate for the darker camo color. The problem to me is that the lighter colors don't seem to be a match for the real thing. The light grey on the real thing is definitely not an off white which makes me wonder why this color is included at all. Meanwhile, both the Light Grey (73051) and the Grey (73151) in this set have a beige-ish tint. AKAN does not specify which colors to use on the splinter camo. I have painted my aircrat Light Grey (73051) all around but not convinced since the pics show a more neutral grey. I have then done the rest as Green Grey (73093) but the contrast with the light grey is too much. This means the third, darker, splinter color will be very dark indeed. Anyone have any solution to this? Have AKAN botched the -29SMT colors?

Funny how this never seems to be the response when Trumpeter/Hobby Boss botch a kit... only Airfix

Wanna bet single piece canopy as per their Super Bugs? (Bracing for disappointment)

Another February/March build: a USMC Harrier from the 1991 Gulf War The kit is from Hasegawa, which makes the only decent AV-8B in this scale. I've built this kit a couple of times (mostly the RAF versions) and it has its ups and downs, the main downs being a very sparse cockpit. I chose not to use aftermarket and in retrospect, regret it somewhat. Particularly annoying is that Eduard doesn't make its Zoom set for the AV-8B anymore (only the B+) which would be incorrect for a Desert Storm bird. Also, neither Eduard nor the Aires resin cockpit make a part for the cockpit aft of the seat, which looks quite bare if the canopy is open. Dreammodel makes a PE set but it's a bit expensive (cheaper ordering from China but couldn't bother waiting). It's a bit sad that the aftermarket makers miss the obvious so often... Paint was Gunze Light Gray (FS 36495) and Blue-Gray (FS 36237). In real life the camo for Desert Storm looks more blue but not sure there's an easy match and I couldn't bother mixing until I found out. The Rockeye bombs were taken from a Hase F-15E kit. This is a typical DS loadout that I read from the dstorm.eu site. Decals were from an old Superscale set, which annoyingly did not come with the rectangular nose stencils which I used from the kit decals. Unfortunately these are dark grey, not black. Oh well. Still pretty pleased with the end result! Enjoy

Long time no see Britmodeller, but I have not been resting on my laurels. Here's the Academy 1/72 Hornet from the 1986 Libya strike. At least I hope it is. Markings come from one of the Aeromaster Stinging Hornets set and has aircraft 203 from VFA-132 Privateers. I'm not sure if this particular aircraft flew in the strike (I know 200 did) but I will assume that it did. The aircraft is armed with a pair of AGM-88 HARM missiles as in real life, with accompanying AIM-9s and AIM-7s. The aircraft is painted using Gunze colors in the original Hornet colors of Light Ghost Gray (FS 36375) over Light Gray (FS 36495). I'm still not quite convinced about the accuracy of Gunze's LGG. I feel it has a purplish tint that shouldn't be there. Metal surfaces were painted with Citadel metallics (old formula). I used white missile markings as I have seen some pictures where they were still carried around this time. The HARM markings were taken from a Revell F/A-18F decal sheet and the HARMs themselves from a Revell F-16C kit. A Windsor & Newton pigment marker was used for the red edges of the bay doors. I love the Academy legacy Hornet. It has some fit issues (dry fitting strongly recommended) and the nose is a complicated 4-piece setup but it looks gorgeous once built. There was no aftermarket used as none was needed although the cockpit, while detailed, might not be enough for purists. A bit of filling and sanding was needed to remove some of the bumps that are not appropriate for a mid-1980s Hornet. Thanks for looking!

The new Revell is a much better Gripen although not among their best efforts. I would say any kit from an OOP Italeri kit that has no decent rival is a good bet. I would put the A-10 up there, as well as the Mirage 2000C. The Jaguar is decent too. I think they rebox the A-6 as well which is quite a good kit.