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First coat of paint on the Kamaz Typhoon from Zvezda, has an interior but not a lot can be seen, even less when I add the windows, still some small bits to add.

Hallo After a longer WIP I finished my model. I took a break in plastic modelling to enjoy my model railway. Now the kit of the Su-34 is quite good. There is not much to say about, it works straight forward. There I replaced the nozzles by Reskit and took also etched parts from Eduard. Eduard parts are some help, but nothing really special. The Quintas cockpit was very useful. Masks from New Ware and Galaxy were the best aid during the painting process. The Master items of discharger are worth to mention. They are tiny, not small. So you need a quiet hand to install them. Just on the tailerons I used them. The pitot tube was also from Master. Decals and stencils are from Bregnun. They are great! To mention is the design of the gear in the kit. This is very well done! So have a look, and enjoy. Happy modelling

Next up on the bench is this rather beautyfull kit from miniart. The SU-76m The kit comes with 5 figures, a fair amount of PE Lot's of decal options And teeny tiny tracklinks yeeeey! having a first look at the sprues i'm seeing a lot of small parts but very little flash. The plastic feels a tad bit soft. The overall detail on the parts is great! I wanted to build an open interior vehicle for a while now and this kit came at a bargain price so i picked it up real cheap. Also, this will be my first experience with miniart. Can't wait to kick this one off. Feel free to tag along. Bring beer and snacks, grab a chair and enjoy the ride. I expext this to be a slow build though. I'm having very little spare time at the moment due to work, school and next week we are starting a complete renovation in our bathroom. However, if i can find some time on the bench, i'll keep you guys posted as always. Cheers! 👍👍👍

Hallo This build is my second Sukhoi of the 27 family. I have as additional the etched parts from Eduard and the resin nozzle from ResKit. The pitot tube from Master and masks from NewWare and Galaxy. To get a better understanding for my build, I relay on two sources: https://www.airplane-pictures.net/type.php?p=2364 https://www.flickr.com/photos/124748333@N07/albums/72157668657957124/ and last not least: My aircraft will be a bright camo a/c with white radom. Even if it is not quite accurate because of a lack of decals. But I like this scheme most of all. Happy modelling

This is the Zvezda kit in 1/350. The kit itself is pretty simple with no real fit issues, the plastic is a little soft though. I picked it up second hand for 5 bucks as the decal sheet was stuffed. Upon review it looks as though the K-19 sailed without any identification numbers on the sail, so this is what I did. I also painted the silver sonar sections on the bow, but did manage to save the bridge windows that give soviet submarines that distinctive look. I kept the weathering pretty light. As for the K-19 herself, she gained the rather harsh nickname of "Hiroshima" while in service. Project 658 submarines were rushed into production in response to US advances in nuclear submarines in the early 1960s. The K-19 would be the first nuclear powered submarine mounting nuclear ballistic missiles to enter service with the Soviet Navy. However, due to the rushed production, multiple workers died while constructing her, mistakes were made in construction and some safety and back up systems were not installed. Several Russian commanders thought the submarines unseaworthy and perhaps they were right, as K-19 would suffer several major accidents, the worse being the loss of coolant to her reactors on her initial patrol, causing the death of several crew members due to radiation exposure. This incident was responsible for the withdrawal of all 'Hotel 1 Class' (NATO designation) for upgrades. K-19 would soldier on until 1991, where she was decommissioned and eventually sent to the scrapper.

After moving home it’s time to refurbish the casualties of the move, there is nothing major just little bits and pieces that have gone astray, luckily I have a ton of spare parts to fix things. this early BMPT only has a few bits missing, nothing too drastic. the T 80s from trumpeter haven’t fared too badly, but they are quite robust models. The T 14 and T 15 apart from a couple of antennas are ok, they were never completely assembled anyway, the protective green is from Mig Ammo, doesn’t look too bad in the photos but is quite dark in real life, not sure whether it needs lightening or not. these have been painted in the new AK protective green, again it the photos it looks not too bad, a slightly different shade but still looks darker in real life and probably need a thin lighter coat? This T 14 probably fared the worst, antenna’s broken or missing, mg broken, slat armour dropped off, it was done as a bit of fun based on a photoshopped picture, the only Syrian flag I could find was in the SModels decal set in their Russian vehicles, however they are really thick and look more like stickers than decals no matter how much decal solution you put on them! i will just update this thread as I get round to finishing something!

Folks, I've finished the BMPT and Tim is happy for me to publish the RFI. I hope you enjoy it. The WiP is here It was a fun build although copying the camouflage and getting modulation got a bit tedious. Tim wanted it dusty, which does kind of go with the paint scheme. The paints were a mixture of Mig and Tamiya. The Mig expo paint set was totally off (for this scheme anyways). I used the Mig Warm Sand for the desert yellow and NATO Brown for the dark red/brown. The dark sand I mixed Tamiya XF-59 and XF-72 until it looked right, because it was what I had to hand. I used Quick Shine for the gloss coat, Mig desert wash for the pin wash, Vallejo Matt varnish and finished with Mig dust pigment and thinners to stabilise. Bill

Hallo This is my 4th T-34. The first one was from Dragon without interior. This one is from MiniArt the T-34 85 from plant 112 in 1944. I built two, the 76 and 85 from AFV. The kits are far-out not so detailed as the MiniArt ones. Here I am amazed about the details and accuracy. After building quite some MiniArt kits, I know the pattern of shortcomings. If you know them, they do not matter. At my first MiniArt tank, the T-60 I got crazy about them. · Holes are sometimes too small · If you have locating pins you must deepen holes, or enlarge them in diameter · Locating cuboidal embossments are sometimes difficult to recognize before cutting the part from the sprue · The instruction here you must be careful reading the direction of arrows Today I got also well along. What did I do? At the start I took Friul tracks. Since the links have no pins from the kit! Here I had some tracks in storage, so for this tank I will use an early track. For the second T-34 I will use a late track. There is one issue, where I am not sure. The discrepancies in colors in instruction of AFV vs. MiniArt. MiniArt claims for the rear hull the red ant corrosion color like Minium. In the front the blue grey at the floor and white for side walls. Some equipment at the side walls in blue grey also. The cover for the suspension axles at the floor in white. Well, does anyone have a guideline for the interior color system of Russian tanks in WW2? Now, it is funny I like this kit. I have a very quiet place, unnatural quiet, but my wife is in quarantine because of a positive PCR Test for Covid. Even my dog stays with her, so it is absolute quiet. Not sick, not ill, just reading in a room isolated. What you can see until today is plastic work, my finished tracks, the side walls and suspension, wheels and engine all done. Tomorrow I will finish up my gear box actuator and some interior. Afterward I will spray the first time at this kit. Happy modelling

Hallo In order to counteract one of the often occurring somewhat bland impressions in British camouflage, I decided to shade the green and brown color a bit. I usually just spray it green and brown. It looks so unnaturally clean, quite the opposite of the photos. In principle, you can shade dark beforehand. That's right, but only in the dark direction. The bleaching is by no means there. When the masks are gone. Bleaching is no longer possible. So, I decided to do this process with the masks in one go per color. In both directions, dark shade and bleaching! Now the model has just been sprayed, without further aging and weathering. What is your opinion? Happy modelling

Hallo I am working with Hasegawa kits and the Huricane Mk. I in 1/48. I want to build 2 of this aircarft: One Luftwaffe and one Russian. Does anyone have original photos of these 3 aircraft? Many thanks in forward! Happy modelling

Cold War Soviet Fighters-Bombers Paint Set Vol.2 (A.MIG-7239) AMMO of Mig Jiménez This six-paint set arrives in a cardboard box with a new more recycling-friendly card inner tray with some colour use suggestions on the rear in the form of three-view profiles of the aircraft. Inside are six bottles of various green and brown camo shades in different stages of separation. Each bottle contains 17ml of paint that is dispensed by a dropper that is found under the yellow screw-top cap. Inside each bottle is a little stirring ball that rattles when agitated. AMMO paints separate quite readily, so having a metal ball in the bottle makes mixing them a lot quicker and easier. We’re all familiar with the quality of AMMO paints by now, and they have a pretty good reputation amongst us modellers, and dry a little slower than some of the competition, which can be of benefit when airbrushing or hand painting details. This is the second set in the series, although we've not yet reviewed that one, you can get it here to complement this set. The colours in the box are as follows: A.MIG-0051 Medium Light Green A.MIG-0058 Light Green Khaki A.MIG-0063 Pale Grey (RLM76) A.MIG-0076 Brown Soil A.MIG-0135 Burnt Cinnamon A.MIG-0206 FS34079/BS641 (RLM81) The bottles all look rather similar when they have been allowed to separate in their carton thanks to gravity, but once agitated the differences become apparent. You may want to pick up, or already have white or dark grey/black to modulate the other shades to depict fading, or to create a darker shade to paint a base onto which the pure and lightened colours can be applied. There are many, many Soviet Cold War era aircraft models out there in every scale, so whether you’re a first-time modeller in this category or not, the colours will come in very useful to simplify the painting process, especially the choosing of shades. One addition that would have been useful would have been the actual Soviet paint codes or names to simplify the process further. You may have noticed in the photo above that someone at AMMO has inadvertently labelled the Su-25 Frogfoot as a Mig-25. They won’t live that one down in the hurry! Conclusion If you want to create a realistically painted Cold War Soviet fighter or bomber, this set and its stablemate Volume 1 are going to be very useful to take away any guesswork when it comes time for paint. Review sample courtesy of

At last I finally completed this offering from Unimodel

Here my early MIG collection. MIG 15 from Tamiya and Revell. MIG 17. Kit, oh I do not remember! MIG 19. Here, the kit I do also not remember!

Hi everyone This is my 1/72 S-300PMU by Model Collect. This is my First AFV model so sorry if I refer to parts of the vehicle wrong. This was a good kit, but the instructions were a bit unclear and did not have all the parts listed where they would go. The kit came with two small PE parts which was nice even though it did not say where half of them went. The fit was good on most of the parts even though most of it did not have locator pins for example on the missile tube which made it difficult to get parts in the right place. I struggled with putting the cab on as it did not fit but I think that was my fault for putting the control centre at the back too far forward. I painted it in AK’s protective 4BO and preshaded it with MiG us olive drab. I did some small leaks of oil with the Ak weathering pencils. I then mixed Pva, some fine dirt and an acrylic burnt umber to make the mud which I applied with an old paint brush. I strugled with making the tyres look dirty as i wanted to keep the tred but my mud mixture was too thick. Would any one be able to recomend a cheap way to weather the tyres? I wanted to create the metal rope shown on the front of the box and in pictures I had seen. I did this using three bits of copper wire from a motor and spinning them together by putting them in a drill. I then separated the ends and made the loops at the end. Thanks for looking

Hi everyone This is my second su-30sm by Zvezda. I thought I would do a second one so I could correct the mistakes I did on the last one. The kit had nice details and Shallow panel line. I was going to add rivets but I could not find blueprints which h showed them so I only applied some on the metal bit in front of the gun as I could see them clearly in pictures. The kit did not need much filler and went together easily. I saw this camo online and thought that it would be fun to try and recreate. is first sprayed the engine colours before painting the whole model as it was easier than doing it after like I did last time. Then I sprayed the whole plane in AK's Blue Grey. I then masked the white camouflage using blue tac and then the same for the gunship grey part. I then sealed it in a gloss varnish as the plane in the pictures looked gloss. I kept the plane clean as I think it was a prototype which didn’t see much action. Thanks for looking.

Hi This is my 1/72 MI-24P by Zvezda. This kit has great detail for a 1/72 kit as it had the options for the maintenance hatches to be open so you can see the gear box and Engines. The kit had realy good fit but it was a tight fit with the cockpit and front part of the fuselage. It was nice for it to come with the rotor blades pre bent to the shape that they would be when on the ground. The kit had an option for a dark grey scheme and this camoflauge one which i decided to go with. I used the Hataka Russian helicopter paint set. Panel lines where very shallow and didnt hold the wash i made very well. I made a wash out of black poster paint and water as i would be able to remove it if it didnt look good. I heavy weathered it using the wash i made and AK weathering pencils. thanks for looking

Offset Scale Models is to release a 1/48th Russian naval tow tractor resin kit. Source: https://www.facebook.com/Offsetmodels/posts/102451561264857 https://www.facebook.com/Offsetmodels/posts/145126646997348 V.P.

I am hoping that someone here may be able to answer my question on W.W.II Russian Hurricanes that were converted into 2 seaters. I am particularly after info for the rear seat's gun and mount. I've found pictures and a few builds of this aircraft type, but nothing that really gave me some insight into that rear position. What type of gun was used? gunner's seat? how was the gun mounted? If anyone can shed some light on this for me, I'd appreciate it.

Hello guys, here are the photos of my most recently completed model, Trumpeter's Mig 3 in 1:48.

Hallo This is my way to get a little distance from modelling aircarft. This famous truck is my first of many. The AAA I also did. In a few days I show you this truck too! Happy modelling

Sukhoi Su-57 Su-57 from Wiki in English This aircraft I can call the best a/c ever built. After getting details of this a/c and getting through all the properties, this is an accumulation of all refinements of today’s aero-design. Beside the aero-design, the jet propulsion belongs also to the latest developments. The electronic, avionic and weapon technology fulfills every desire you may have today. Why is this development such a glory? Well, the way up to the sky is not a straight one. Very bumpy with many setbacks. The Russians learned. Each design can become a good design, if you are under really very hard pressure. Otherwise, you will not create a good design. It would be a low compromise. If you have a strong need, a shortage on materials, everything like this can push you forward. After all the decades from th1960s on until today, the jet fighter development all over the world went in an interesting way. After collecting the knowledge of supersonic flight, and the creation of fighters, which can fly them, some nations learned their lessons, and some not. Some nations thought, with money you can buy everything, but wisdom and intelligence you cannot buy in the supermarket or at the black market. Wisdom takes time to grow. Decades and generations. The design of every aircraft tells us a story about the people behind. The people who ordered it and the people who designed it. Such a thing cannot lie. It is. It is a fact. It talks to us more, as somebody may like it. So, do the F-35 and the Su-57 talk to us. Happy modelling I was in the design field for decades. I got the clue, to read from designs and programs, the same way, as people in Bletchley Park read the keys of the Enigma. In my work, it took us (office of 5 people) two decades to overrun a worldwide company with thousands of specialists.

Soviet Road Signs WWII (35601) 1:35 MiniArt via Creative Models Ltd. If you're travelling unfamiliar roads you need a little help to find your way, which is where road signs come in, and with the size of Russia and the likelihood that most of their troops weren't used to being away from their home villages, it's hardly surprising that signs became more important once the Great Patriotic War began in earnest. This set is full of signs of this nature, and includes military signs to guide their troops to rally points, service areas and so forth as they didn't have the luxury of GPS and satnav back then. The set arrives in a shrink-wrapped figure box with a painting of the contents on the front and brief instructions on the rear. There are four medium-sized sprues in grey styrene in the box, plus a decal sheet on thick paper that contains all the painted descriptive fronts of the signs. As well as the signs themselves there are a number of posts on which to hang then, one of which is a two-part telegraph pole with a lamp on a decorative bracket and ceramic insulators on short metal arms from which you can hang wires loose as shown in the diagrams, or taut if you have something to attach them to. Each sign is either metal or moulded with a restrained wooden texture that will show through the decals if you use decal solution during drying. Some of the larger signs are also made from a few planks, so the joins will also show through the decal. On the sprue that contains the pole there are also additional undocumented parts for poles and such, which you could also press into service if you can figure out how to put them together. There are 50 signs so there will be a few decals left over, but it's entirely up to you how you lay them out. The instructions recommend painting the faces of the signs gloss white before you apply the decals so they obtain the maximum brightness, and in case you don't read Russian, there's a helpful translation graphic on their website, which we have reproduced for you below: Conclusion Dioramas rely on the minutiae of the background to give that "lived in" look to the terrain, and signage is essential for all but the straightest of roads. The addition of the telegraph pole gives extra depth to any road scene, and the painting guide helps with painting the plastic parts. Highly recommended. Review sample courtesy of

This kit somehow found its way into my car when I was at Modelkraft Model Show at the weekend. I had never heard of this type but looks rather interesting. First some 'fluff'. The Russian Shavrov SH-2 was an amphibian aircraft in a sesquiplane design that was developed in the 1930's for use as a trainer, fishery protection, patrol and an ambulance. The SH-2 was made primarily of wood and was powered by Shvetsov M-11L 5-cylinder air-cooled radial engine, driving a 2-bladed propeller that was capable of producing 100 hp. Being an amphibian, the SH-2 was fitted with wheels that could be lifted by a hand crank that was fitted on the cockpit dashboard. The cockpit had seats for the pilot plus one other and in the ambulance roll, had room for a stretcher patient behind the seats. Over 700 were built when production started in 1934 and proved very popular with pilots, staying in service until 1964. The kit. The boxart, looks rather cute. 1 plastic sprue. Second sprue. Third sprue. Clear bits. Decals. This will be the first time that I have encountered an Amodel kit and I have few illusions of the work that will be needed with a limited-run kit. A quick inspection of the main sprues show the usual flash and the detail is a little lacking. The glazing is a little thick with a number of options available. Decals look good but only time will tell how well they will go. If anybody knows anything about this puppy that could be useful, chip in. Stuart

These are all old builds, and in retrospect should have been posted at the beginning of these series. They often represent the first, hesitant steps on scratchbuilding. Here is another from 2006, 13 years ago (original text as posted then): Some times Russians don't make just planes. They make flying poetry. Boris Ivanovich Cheranovsky dreamed about the half-moon gliding on the frozen surface of the lake. And he created a series of planes with a charm that is hard to ignore. The daring design created some stability problems, but most of his planes at least flew, and some times they flew very well. I just posted my scratchbuilt BICh 7a, a smaller, previously designed plane, for size and type reference: The BICh 14 was a transport (four passenger) version, and both date from the early 30's. For the construction of the model I used some styrene, wood, metal, invocations, imprecations, a magic wand and some pixie dust. The interior was provided with five seats, control column, instrument panel and rudder bar, all to be forever forgotten under the dark, impenetrable canopy. The Townend rings were made of two layers of .010 styrene wrapped around the right size of metal tube, and later a half-round styrene rod was added as a lip to the inner front side. Once dry the part was sanded close to shape. The engines were made of scored styrene rod and stretched sprue, and the half-round front covers are heat-and-smash styrene over a rounded dowel end.

These are all old builds, and in retrospect should have been posted at the beginning of these series. They often represent the first, hesitant steps on scratchbuilding. Here is another from 2007, 12 years ago (original text as posted then): The flying parable of Boris Ivanovich Cheranovsky. The BIch 7a is the predecessor of the BICh 14: a twin engine transport, also a parabola wing design, being the 7 a bit smaller (could carry just two comrades). Yes, it flew, having some trouble with the engine but otherwise pretty good in performance. Not much came out of it, though. If you think that this was 1932, and also considered the Russian winter, only admiration can be felt. A singular machine that could well have been included by Andrei Tarkovsky in “Solaris” –by the way, the original one-.