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I recreated the Ukrainian "Blue-58" Su-27B with blue digital camouflage, piloted by Col. Oleksandr "Grey Wolf" Oksanchenko. He was a display pilot and a regular at various airshows and competitive air fests before his retirement in 2018. In 2022 he returned to active duty and was KIA on Feb 25th, 2022 while covering his retreating comrades. Kit used: Great Wall Hobby 1/48 Su-27B. The digital camouflage patterns are from DXM water decals which were a bit too resistant to decal softener and left an uneven finish. Guess I'll use paint masks next time if I have the chance to build another one. The cockpit was upgraded with 3D-printed decals from Quinta Studio and it worked wonders. Saved me quite a lot of time too. I've invested corresponding decals for all my stashed jet kits so far after this build to get me uh, well, more motivated to eliminate my stashes. They are a bit pricey, but really bring the authenticity of panels and other interiors to a whole new level. Rip Colonel Oleksandr. You'll always be remembered for your stunning maneuvers pulled at the airshows.

Hello! This is my recent project, a GWH SU-35S Flanker-E, 1/48 scale. It is, undoubtedly, my most demanding and longest build since my return to the hobby. It certainly could have been a much easier and quick build, but after seeing some fantastic jobs in the net and to be, at least, close to the level of the kit, I had to try harder. For starters, Sukhois have that particular hundreds of different tones for the metals in the engine/exhausts areas. They differ a lot, depending on the incident light and angles of view Also, there are not too many good references around, specially for the underside. But then I got lucky and found a masterpiece from a guy named Haneto, at the arcforums.com. There, he came out with a fantastic tutorial for his SU-27 which I tried to follow. Of course, I didn't get even close, but it helped a lot. The kit is very good, with an impressive level of details and weapons, but as Mr Haneto points out, there are a few issues to deal with. In my case, the main one was the fitting of the engines nozzles to the fuselage. Their diameters were not a perfect match. Don't know if was my fault or not, but I ended up with some small steps. Fortunately, that area is so visually busy and colorful that is mostly unseen. Instructions, for this particular kit, because GWH has several SU-27 and SU-35, are far from ok. They don't come with decals spots for some weapons, so I had to download them from the net. Also, I don't like their choice of CAD pictures instead of good old drawings. Those low resolution pictures aren't clear enough and lack precise locations for some items, at least for me. The decals are just ok too. The red stars are a bit thick, but the problem is the transparent film for the rest. They aren't that transparent and tend to silver, so I cut them off everywhere I could. Good call! I've used Quinta Studios 3D decals for the cockpit and Galaxy masks ( I'd say they are essential) and Reskit resins for R-73 missiles. Paints are locally made polyester based colors. And, of course, for those blue, gold and silver shades for the engines areas, I've used the Tamiya Weathering Master Sets, also very useful. Hope you enjoy and, again, kudos for Mr Haneto and his tutorial. Cheers! George

Hello dear modellers Another model entered to my IIAF fleet! This time a very special bird , The first ever jet aircraft in Imperial Iranian Air Force (IIAF) service that started a new era in my country’s aviation history. This is the orange one used to fly as dart carrier with both T and RT versions. Kit is Great Wall Hobby T-33A Shooting Star early version which was superb. Colors are Mr.Hobby Decals come from Modeller decals. Hope you like (pictures taken by my cell phone) Barzin🌹 IMG_8217 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8208 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8210 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8212 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8206 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8218 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8221 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8224 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8220 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8203 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8211 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8223 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8204 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8229 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8209 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8205 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_8222 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr IMG_5879 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr image-1-45-1 by Freddy Pilot, on Flickr

No need to introduce the subject: I will try my very best to live up to the kit‘s standard. Never built an Eagle before. Never built such an expensive kit before. So yes, I am VERY excited about this one. Hope I won‘t bore you guys, as it will be the box art build. Massachusetts ANG. (Hey, this is about air dominance, not a fashion parade 😜 ). Sam

Hello all, currently working on this beast of a kit, and following a request, I thought I'd share this build log with you. Hopefully some of you may find this useful. Here are some photos of the cockpit; (Apologies for the slight blurriness of the pics, they seemed alright when I took them..) Plenty has already been said about the amount of detail in this kit, & I can only confirm this. No need for any 'detail-up' parts here! of course, the downside is there are a lot of small fiddly parts that can easily be lost. Thankfully the fit of everything has been pretty good so far. I've used a mix of Vallejo, Scale 75 & Citadel acrylic paints for this, with the main colours airbrushed on. The interior blue was a mix of about three different colours as I didn't have the exact colour I was looking for. I was looking for a blue with a bit of vibrancy that makes the cockpit and all its details stand out, as well as closely match the real thing (or from what I can best ascertain from stock photos online). The floor colour looks messy, but once the seat is applied so little will be visible I didn't bother to spend too much time on it, a lesson learnt from previous builds. Here's a couple of (blurry) photos of the cockpit with seat attached; For the weathering I used enamel washes/panel liners by AK & AMMO, with a small amount of weathering powder added around the footwells. My biggest concern is the decals - one of the biggest complaints of this kit is to do with the thickness of the decals provided, & the few added to the seat do appear more like vinyl stickers in real life. Whilst very detailed, I didn't want to attempt to add the decals of the powered up screens as I could see that going very wrong. It's also made me think about getting the aftermarket decals from Begemot for this kit, although I didn't really want to spend any more money on this. Overall I don't think this is the best cockpit I've painted, but considering how small it is, & that it'll be buried within the housing of the main body, it should work out ok. Any questions/comments, let me know!

Hi mates, I'll take part in this contest with this GWH Kit: A quick look inside the box:

MiG-29 9-12 from GWH. Painted with warious shades of AKAN paints. Decals from Begemot.