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Jasonb13

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Everything posted by Jasonb13

  1. So, a quick question about this. Does the aircraft also have to be in a US scheme, or is just being a US design be enough?. So, for example, would an Iranian F-14 be eligible?
  2. Kit: HobbyBoss MiG-31M Foxhound Scale: 1:48 Paint & Weathering: MRP, Tamiya and Revell paints, Oil Washes. Extras: Katran Resin Exhausts, Master Metal Pitot Tube, Kav Canopy Masks Build Log: Here
  3. Thanks a lot @Col. I finally got around to taking more pictures. I couldn't use my usual portable photo booth thingy as the MiG is just too big! So I made do with the kitchen table, though the lighting isn't brilliant. Anyhow, it is all done, and it's great to have it finished. It took just less than the three months, and it actually went together ok. The exhausts were very fiddly, but also worth it I think. The decals took ages, so many stencils. So many areas I'm not happy with (the varnish, some of the detail painting, and I still can't make a model without seams) but I also like how the paint and oil wash turned out, nicely adding some tonal variation to what is essentially a fairly plain grey scheme! Thanks for all the help and kind comments on here, it was much appreciated, and thanks to @trickyrich for running this GB, and giving me an excuse to finally build this kit! Here are the pics I took, I will put a few of them into the Gallery as well. Thanks!
  4. Thanks for your kind comments! So, I basically have this done, but I need to try to get some good pictures, which will be interesting considering the size of it! Thankfully sticking on all the various bits and pieces went pretty well, even the complicated undercarriage. I also tried to represent the seal around the canopies by painting some red paint on them. So far I haven't knocked off any of the aerials and pitots etc. but we'll see how long that lasts! Here's a quick pic of it finished, and I'll post up more pics here and in the gallery when I get them done.
  5. Basically on the home stretch now. I did what I could with the bad gloss coat, and then got the oil panel wash done... Then once that was all tidied up I got the matt coat done, and got everything unmasked. Some touch-ups are needed, especially around the cockpit, but nothing too bad. Am thinking of hand-painting the red seal around the canopies themselves. As always, it's hard to get a decent picture of the whole aircraft! Next up was those exhausts, and I was hoping they would fit ok. As it happened, with a little bit of a push, in they went, and tight enough that I didn't need to add glue! And I am very happy with how they turned out... The resin exhausts have altered the CoG a little, and it's now threatening to be a tail sitter, but hopefully when everything is attached it will work out ok. So what I have left is some little bits of paint touch-ups and lots of bits to stick on (undercarriage, doors, pylons, missiles, aerials, canopies etc.). I will definitely have it done by the deadline!
  6. Hi all... I normally use Aqua Gloss, but I have run out, so for my latest build I've moved on to Gauzy Intermediate Agent. I have two bottles of it, one half used, and one never opened. The Aqua Gloss specifically says "do not shake" but the Gauzy doesn't have any instructions about shaking. I shook the half-used bottle, and ended up with a bottle full of small bubbles! So, I went back to my knowledge of Aqua Gloss and opened the new bottle, without shaking at all, and used it, spraying it at about 15psi. And this was the result... Any idea why this happened? I never had this with Aqua Gloss. And more importantly, any idea how to fix it? I have sections like this all over the model (though this is probably the worst one). As you can see, the decals are down, so I can't go back to respraying paint. Would brushing some on (as it's meant to be brushable as well) help? Or respraying some thin coats? Does anyone know if Guazy needs to be shaken first or not? Thanks in advance!
  7. Sigh... So my second gloss coat didn't work out, and I now have sections like this on various parts of the aircraft... I really don't know what's caused this, and am currently trying to figure out how to improve it!
  8. More work done! It took a few days, but the decals are all done. They behaved themselves thankfully, there was just a lot of them (easily over 200). Once again, not easy to get pics, but here's an idea. Another gloss coat is next, and I have also collected a couple of aerials etc. that I missed originally, and I'll spray them while I have the airbrush out. Once the gloss coat is done, it's time for a panel wash, which will take a little while due to the size of her! The a matt coat, unmask everything, and start sticking all the various bits and pieces on!
  9. Thanks Dermot, it's getting there! Some more pictures to share! Firstly, I finally got the aircraft painted! Am fairly happy with the tonal variation on the main grey, though I wish the nose cone contrast was more obvious. It's an awkward git to paint due to the size of the airframe. I got the first gloss coat done too, but unfortunately went a bit too heavy in places, and I have some gloss runs to deal with... Some googling suggest very careful sanding should help with it. Back to the exhausts, I finally was happy with the painting and weathering and started putting it all together. Afterburner rings first... Then adding the main "length" of the exhaust... The two semi-circular halves that join together (along with the tiny "petals" on one of the halves) gave me all sorts of hassle, and I must have knocked off and reattached 15 or so of those little petals. You can even see one of them is unpainted after I had lost the original. But they finally took shape... Then I added them to the top of the main exhaust (for the second time, the first time I tried to fit the bottom of them *just* inside the rim of the main exhaust, and then realised they're meant to just sit *on* the rim, not inside it... And finally, some dry fitting of the external exhaust that sits on the end, showing how it all looks together. It's very hard to get a good pic of the whole sub-assembly, really you need a video to see it properly... So, three and a half weeks to go. I need to do all the decals/stencils, another gloss coat, a panel wash, a matt coat, and then stick all the various pieces on the airframe. I should be fine I think, as long as I keep tipping away at it!
  10. More progress last night... For the exhausts, I got a screen grab from a video online. If I can get anything close to that I'll be very happy! I decided to at least try to replicate the stripes running down the exhausts. So that meant masking tape! And slowly adding them. It's not exact, but it might give a sense of it when painted... Doing between the petals was a lot harder, and some of them had to be reattached afterwards... But in the end I now have the exhausts ready for a spray of Burnt Iron, which should hopefully contrast a little with the Exhaust Metal already there. We'll see when I get to painting them! I then noticed a small crack in the tip of the nose that had to be dealt with, and realised I could also add the base of the Metal Pitot Tube I'd bought, especially as the base is the same colour as the aircraft. I needed to sand the nose a little to get the Pitot base to fit nicely and line up... And a little more dry fitting shows the Pitot Tube is looking good, and can easily be painted separately and added at the end... Finally, a lot more masking on the airframe, masking off the two sets of panels I'd painted with the two greys... And basically that's where I am now. The main airframe needs to have a bit of primer done on the repaired nose/pitot tube base, and then the nose can be resprayed the light grey, and the whole airframe can be sprayed the main grey. And the exhausts are ready for their coat of Burnt Iron. Just need to find the time to do that!
  11. Yep, it always looks good in black! And I fixed the dead picture links as well...
  12. I haven't been well recently, so have got very little done, and we're down to 5 weeks left! But I have managed to make some progress, mainly tonight. Firstly, I got some masking done, some sections that are going to stay black... Then I sprayed the nose cone and a couple of panels a light grey, and some other panels a darker grey... Once those panels/sections are masked, I'll be able to paint the rest of the airframe. I started work on painting the exhausts as well. I have a plan for this, I have no idea if it will work! Firstly, I sprayed the green on them but I was fairly light with it, and I wasn't trying to get a decent coat. Then I sprayed some exhaust metal over that, once again not trying to get full coverage. That's where it is now... It's really hard to see in the pic, but there are areas that are definitely still green-ish. Next for the exhausts is some very fine thin strips of masking tape, before I spray another light coat, this time of Burnt Iron. Once that's done and unmasked. I'm hoping a dark wash and some black and grey pastel chalks will blend it all together! We'll see how that all goes!
  13. Progress continues... I am still slowly getting jobs done on this, with what, 6 weeks to go now? I finally got the petals done... 27 on each exhaust, it only took about an hour and a half in total actually, and was a little fiddly but not too bad thankfully. I didn't have to get them too uniform as pics of the real ones show that they aren't all perfectly lined up and at the same angle etc. And then I got the airframe masked for priming. I decided to use the canopies to mask the cockpit, it meant cutting off the attachment tabs (which are set at an angle for the canopies to be open) but the tabs didn't fit great anyhow, so I didn't mind doing it. I used cocktail sticks for the rear undercarriage so that the airframe can stand up after painting. Priming a model of this size, especially length, was very awkward. I was more spraying *towards* the spray booth than into it, and I kept on hitting various parts of the airframe off the booth, or the desk, or something else, as it's hard to deal with the size of it. And because these things never go smoothly, I was putting it down after finally finishing the primer when I hit it off one object too many... There's not much of an attachment point on the stabilator, as it's representing the real one that fully moves. So I knew I was going to have to try to add some strength when gluing it back on. A little bit of drilling and some brass tubing later... And I have a fully primed airframe! A great side-benefit of priming in black is that the models always just look so bloody cool at this stage! I also got all the exhaust parts primed as well, and thankfully (and surprisingly) none of the petals blew away from the airbrush going over them. I know I used superglue to attach them, but they are literally tiny attachment points, so I thought I might lose a couple of them. I'm still not sure how to actually paint these paints, they're the Russian green originally, but obviously a lot of that gets scorched away. A mix of that green, a metallic exhaust colour, and generally "sooty" black and greys seems to be what the pics look like, I just have to figure out how to recreate that! Anyhow, that's where I am now. Next steps (apart from the exhausts) are tidying up any issues the primer shows up (as best I can) and then painting some detail parts on the airframe and masking them off before doing the main colour.
  14. I didn't get near this for a few days, and still haven't done the "petals", but I did tackle removing the fragile afterburner rings from their resin blocks. The first one didn't work out so well... But some careful application of superglue sorted it... With lessons learned from the first one, the second one went a bit smoother, and now they are both free... Finally, I test fitted the exhausts into the airframe, and they fit pretty decently, so I should be able to assemble/paint them separately, which means I can avoid having to mask them... So, next up are those petals, and once they are done, I'm gonna mask up the airframe and prime it and the exhausts at the same time, all going well!
  15. Thanks @exdraken, it's getting there! So I finally started on the resin exhausts. Using a razor saw really helped (thanks @trickyrich!) and it made short work of the larger parts. The afterburner rings I haven't touched yet though, mainly out of fear! Have a look at the pic, there are a row of steps just above the resin parts in the pic that show just how much resin needs to be remove to leave the delicate afterburner rings. I'll be brave soon and I'll give it a go... I did get started on the other fragile part of the exhausts, the two halves of the inner exhaust (for want of a better word!) which need to have 54 holes drilled in them, and then 27 PE "petals" added to each upper half... That will be a little fiddly, especially with my eyesight. Thankfully they do give you some spares. I also need to figure out painting these exhausts. The instructions call for the Green colour, but I think I'll be using that as a base, and adding some dark metallic colour over it. The main thing I've seen from pics is that there definitely seems to be some light grey as well, and it's very matt and dusty, so pastel chalks might get used as well, I'll see! I am also conscious that we're nearly at the halfway point, but I'm hopeful that once I get these exhausts done, then I have most of the hard work done. The painting *should* be fairly simple, apart from some masked panels here and there it's a single colour. There are a *lot* of stencils, but that will be about the biggest job left once it's painted really. And hopefully the work put in to get the undercarriage/ordinance etc. done at the start of the build will pay off at the end.
  16. Ah well, it's red on mine, oops! And I don't have the turquoise, as the MiG-31M used a grey interior.
  17. Spent some time working on this,. but mainly doing fiddly little jobs, like the canopies. I got a mask set, which I now realise also helps you recrate the thin red line around the windows on the MiG-31... There aren't many clear pics of the MiG-31M, but from what I can see the front canopy *doesn't* have the red border, and also the mask set, and the canopy part itself, don't allow for a border, so I'm going to go with it not having one (and please don't send me any pics now of it having it! ). I managed to lose the clear HUD part (continuing a trend, I lost a landing light from my previous build) but I had some spare acetate and I cut that out to somewhat match the size and shape (the pic is before it was cut down to shape)... With it in place it doesn't look too bad and will do the job... Having it in place, and the front canopy done, meant I could finally stick the front canopy on. Which is great news, as I have lost count of the amount of times I knocked off the PE HUD "holders" and I'm stunned I didn't lose them. I also got the middle section between the two canopies added as well... And the two canopies are done too, with the inner framing in green. I haven't unmasked the outside of them yet, in case I can use them when masking the cockpit, but I think they are designed to be left open so I might have to just use masking tape on the cockpit instead... Finally, while working on all the clear parts, I got the landing lights done as well... So, I need to check, but I *think* that means the airframe is pretty much ready for primer, once it's all masked. And those exhausts are waiting for me!
  18. This is great work, the cockpit and seat looks excellent. I love how the -25 and -31 both seem to have "interesting" fit with the intakes/trunking, no matter the kit and scale!
  19. Thanks @Hook! Every time I look at your thread you seem to have added another build, do you have 4 on the go now? Thankfully, while I've had some fit issues with this, it's nothing like what you have faced!
  20. More pics, and more progress. With a bit of work, I finally got the upper fuselage and wings attached... It took a while to get the joins/seams as smooth as I could, with lots of careful gluing, bit by bit. However, I'm not sure I am happy with my plan to paint the insides of the intakes before the rest of the aircraft. I thought it would be easier to do first, and then mask, but I seem to have managed to end up with some different shades of grey in there, and I'd rather it didn't look like that... I am currently deciding how easy it will be to mask off the start of the silver trunking a little and then respray the inside of the intake as I'm spraying the rest of the airframe. I'll see what I decide! Anyhow, I was able to continue building now that I have the fuselage finished, and it definitely looks like a MiG-31 now! I still need to do the canopies and have them painted/in place before the airframe is ready for masking and priming. And I spent a few minutes looking at the exhausts to see what's involved there too! Just removing them from the resin blocks will be interesting!
  21. Thanks Rich, getting ahead of myself in that pic! Anyhow, I have got more done, and have been a little slow in putting up photos. I started on putting the Wheel Wells/Trunking/Intakes/Cockpit and Nose all together with the lower fuselage. Firstly some dry fitting to see how the trunking and intakes fit... Then, with some slow and careful gluing and lots of clamping, I got the wheel wells in place... How long do you think this piece is going to last during the rest of the build? No idea why the instruction tell you to glue it in so early, I can now see that it could be added in near the end... With more careful gluing and clamping, the nose is done with the cockpit in place. Not quite seamless, but unfortunately my builds never are... Next was adding the nose section to the lower fuselage. This also involved slowly gluing and clamping bit by bit. And I still ended up with more seams than I would like... And then I finally got the trunking and intakes added too. I decided to not glue the intakes to the trunking, in the hope that would give me more leeway in lying up the intakes to the fuselage. Surprisingly enough, this involved yet *more* clamping etc. and there are quite a few seams/steps that I'm gonna have to work on... And if you shine a light *just so* you can just about see the engine fans... So that's where I am now. Lots of tidying up needed, as best I can without losing too many panel line details. Then it's seeing if the upper fuselage/upper wing section will fit! So far so good though, a month in, two months to go, if I can keep this pace up I should be ok.
  22. Thanks! All the awkward jobs are getting there, pretty soon I hope to get on with actually building the airframe! As a good friend of mine said, it's like eating all the boring healthy food off your plate first! Couldn't resist this quick pic, the almost finished R-37s dry-fitted to the still boxed lower fuselage... Nice and busy looking!
  23. I've been working away at this all week, and I'm finally getting some parts glued together. Here are a few pics... First, the ejection seat, pretty much done... And the R-73Es have decals on them... As do the Instrument panels... I managed to lose one of these parts, after I had painted it. So I threw something together with tubing. It's a little thin, but as it's mainly hidden away in the wheel well, it'll do the job... Now, far be it for me to judge, but personally I think the MiG-31 undercarriage might just be a *little* over-complicated... The cockpit is basically done... As is the front wheel well... (which I have since "closed up" after taking this pic) As are the main wheel wells too, though I haven't decided if I'll add the main undercarriage to them as well or not. Adding them makes masking harder, but gives a very large model something to stand on when I start painting the airframe itself. You can see the replacement part I had to make on the one on the left... The intake trunking is also done, all sprayed and washed first... And the engine fans are painted. Funny, due to the strong light they look the same colour as the trunking, where they're actually burnt iron, not silver/aluminium... I wonder how much of this will be seen... I reckon the answer will be bugger all! Finally for today, I have the wheels and tyres done. I know some people aren't a fan of vinyl tyres, but it's one less thing to paint as far as I'm concerned! That's it for now. Next steps are spraying some primer and then silver on the inside of the lower fuselage, to match the wheel wells. I also need to do a panel wash on the missiles/pylons/front intakes. Then assemble the front intakes, and then I can start putting the fuselage together, and we'll see what *that fit is like. AND... Those Resin/PE exhausts are waiting for me...
  24. Me too Rich! More progress done, though not a lot of photos yet. The seats are assembled... Then I got a lot of the internal parts primed and some of the internals/missiles etc. now have grey on them too. The only pic I have so far is the fully painted R-37s... With a bit of luck I'll get more spraying done today, the pylons for the missiles, little touch ups on the R-73s and R-77s, maybe even the undercarriage etc. Need to get some gloss on the missiles and pylons too, for a panel wash and, in some cases, some decals. Am holding off on the cockpit, as I can't decide if I will use the IP decals (which look decent, but won't sit well on the raised details of the plastic) or just paint the plastic itself, which won't look as well. Either way, the canopy HAS to be open, there's no other choice in this model from what I have read, so I want it to look as good as it can (but still out of the box!).
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