1/72 KP Soviet MiG-23M FINISHED (Too late)

[Phantome]

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.

 

 

 

Edited June 12, 2017 by Phantome

[Phantome]

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...

 

Edited June 1, 2017 by Phantome

[Phantome]

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.

 

 

 

 

[Phantome]

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)

 

[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.

 

[Phantome]

Btw, this is the real plane I was going for, Red 12. I will be adding a drop tank as well as AA-6 and AA-8 missiles from a Dragon armament kit.

 

Edited June 4, 2017 by Phantome

[Col.]

Fast work Phantome! Did you get this one completed?

[Phantome]

Hi Col.

 

I did. Unfortunately yesterday the site was down every time I tried to log in to post the pictures (kept getting Error 500 notifications). Is there any way to make an exception due to these technical circumstances?

If not, no problem, I will post the finished build now regardless.

 

Final comments on kit: Nothing much more to be said aside from the previous gripes. Looks like a MiG-23 to me!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 12, 2017 by Phantome

[Phantome]

Ughh, I just noticed the gallery thread is closed.

 

Oh well...

[Hewy]

Very nice indeed, love the finished weathering ,very effective 

Glynn

[Valkyrie]

It's a cracking build as usual. Really like this 

[Hook]

Great looking Flogger!

 

Cheers,

 

Andre