stalal

Really good and inspiring stuff.

Agreed! With their F-16 kits, you dont need any aftermarket. I have built 3. 3 more in storage. Absolutely beautiful kit and a benchmark in quality. Buy a Hasegawa and start looking for aftermarket at the same time.

With the way they designed their, simply brilliant F-16 kits in both 48th and 32nd, it always looked a two 2 seat F-16 is just around the corner. If they bring out F-14 out of nowhere, I will be extremely surprised. F-14 Tomcat is well covered by Hasegawa in 1/48th anyways.

Wow. Looking forward to it. After Birdcage Corsair, this was expected. http://www.hlj.com/product/tam60325

Does Mirage 2000 carry Damocles pod? The same that Rafale carries. Do you have a picture of Mirage 2000d carrying Damocles pod. I dont understand what is the difference between PDLCTS and Damocles. I do have L'Arsenal Aero Damocles pod but I m not sure if Mirage 2000d carries it.

I m building Italeri Mirage 2000D which as you all know is a Kinetic Mirage in Italeri box. Its a model kit of a modern jet and it does not have Head Up Display represented in the cockpit! Also, some other obvious details are missing. So I m looking for alternatives in aftermarket. Does Eduard photo etch set 49556 (http://www.eduard.com/store/out/media/49556.pdf) represent the correct cockpit or Wolfpack Design (http://www.wolfpack-d.com/catalog/htm/48150.html) resin set does the job? Your help will be greatly appreciated.

Nicely done kit and most importantly, beautifully photographed.

This build is very inspiring. I have been doing some research on the external and the consensus is the kit's tanks have a wrong shape. If I want to have tanks in the right shape, what are my options? What aftermarket external fuel tanks are there or what will be the method to modify kits tanks to conform to the right shape.

Will these detail sets fit Mirage 2000D in Italeri boxing?

These are good resources for anyone intending to build this kit. I have used these for references http://walkarounds.airforce.ru/avia/rus/mig/mig-21mf/index.htm http://www.primeportal.net/hangar/mig-21_home.htm http://litnik.in.ua/reaktivnie-samoleti/mig-21-walkaround-ot-qwerty.html http://walkarounds.airforce.ru/avia/rus/mig/mig-21smt/index.htm http://walkarounds.airforce.ru/avia/rus/mig/mig-21bis/index.htm

Tamiya Olive Green & Tamiya Flesh, mixed with several Gunze colors in earth tones. Gunze 302 for radome and sensor at top of the vertical fin. Underneath its Tamiya or Gunze RLM Light Blue.

Those Begemot Decals, which I missed to mention in my original post were superb. I have only put half of them. It took me 4 nights and one full day to do just the stencils ans I was tired!!

Interesting times to build this kit. With another upheaval in Middle East and this kit lying in my stash for some time, I thought this is the best time to build it. Its an Academy 1/48 MiG-21 with the following aftermarket sets - Afterburner decals 48-084 Fabulous Fishbeds - Aires 4049, cockpit detail set - Quickboost air scoops 48-021 - Begemot 1/48 MiG-21 stencils 48-003 If you want Academy kit to be a great projects, Aires cockpit and Begemot decals are a must. The weapons except rocket pods, come from sprues donated by a friend modeler at another forum. All Academy weapons are wrong.

As you can see on the real plane, the Angle of Attack is a flat faced sensor On the kit, its just a little node jutting out. So I removed the node, masked the area and inserted the part from the old etched set I had. Then colored it Tamiya Titanium Silver. The result is quite encouraging.

Begemot decal stencils were a class act. It took me a long time, almost 4 nights and 1 day to do them, but every bit worth it. I did not know Russian planes have so many decals. And I dont even know if Syrian example would have so many left on it after constant use. This is how it looks fully decaled and stenciled. I had this Eduard detail set circa 1990 in my stash. This has some interesting details like AoA probe which is just a dot on the kit. Another beautifully etched detail is the railing on the cockpit threshold and the locking mechanism of the canopy. As I move to more detail work inside the canopy, AoA (I hope it comes good) and seat belts, check out the built up undercarriage and weapons. The weapons in the kit have their shape totally wrong. I have used kit's rocket pods, though reluctantly. The weapons and pylon for the missile come from Eduard boxing. Pieces of that kit were kidly given to me by a fellow modeler at another forum.

Yes you can. Out of the box, this Academy kit is actually MiG-21bis. The Finnish examples are MiG-21bis in this decal sheet. The problem will be finding this sheet as Afterburner decals have gone out of business.

Begemot decals arrived today from Russia. They definitely look like a game changer

dont really know if its a big problem. But the kit spine fits like a glove. Some times the decal makers have the wrong model depicted too. So I tried to play between the confusion of lack of pictures of the subject and decal maker goofing up. But I would strongly argue against Quickboost spine update set. Its a worst after market item I have bought. On the contrary, Quickboost scoops are really good and 'must have' for a kit to add detail.

Next up are top surfaces. At this point I have decided to build this MiG-21 as a Syrian version. The base color is a mix of Tamiya Flesh, Gunze H027 Sand, Tamiya Desert Yellow and white. Mixed in different proportions to create varying shades. The green is Tamiya Olive Green, mixed with different shades, like Gunze H320 to create some depth and sun bleach effects. Same is with base sand color - different shades to creat highlights and usage effects Once I m satisfied with color depth, I went to do some weathering. I wouldn't do this much weathering on a plane but since in developing world, the maintenance standards aren't very high, I went on with a little heavier effect. I dont have any particular specimen of Syrian MiGs', so observing different developing world MiGs' and the wear on their camouflage, I went ahead. The weathering is hand painted using very fine, very high quality brushes. I m comfortable with fine brush 10/0. Since painting by hand, Tamiya and Gunze are difficult to control, I used Vallejo MODEL COLOR series paints 977 Desert Yellow and 830 German Field Gray. The Field Gray was used over sand surface to paint usage and chipping effects. Deser Yellow was used on green surfaces to paint wear marks. In natural light, the colors look much better, but still need some work

Arkady72. Splendid work. I wanted to ask you what lens and set up you use to take such high quality pictures?

Tyre hubs were painted Gunze H302 Green. Instead of going for regular black tyres, I painted them first shades of gray to show wear and then treated them with charcoal stick dust to give the shade of black. The irregular black with gray showing through looks much more realistic. The hubs were then dry brushed with a lighter shade of green to complete the effect before oil washes give them a final look.

Some more highlights created on the underside with different shades of gray added to the base blue. this will be further highlighted using oil color washes.

Great!! Thanks for sharing.

I did not mean them here, I meant inside the inner side of canopy.

That I would want to keep it with me until I finish it But Afterburner decals has so many Sand-Blue-Green marking options for Middle East Air Forces. That's the only clue I want to give you this far