The Killer of Phantoms

[Adam Poultney]

At the RIAT this year, I saw MiG-21s flying for probably the first time. Apparently they hadn't flown in a Uk airshow since 2001.

It's not exactly a new kit, being first released in 2004, yes this is Zvezda's original MiG-21 released two years before the 2006 kit.

From an intial look, the sprues look good (This picture was taken just after starting so some parts are removed). 

Anyways, on with the build.

As normal, construction is began with the pilot's office. The seat lacks any seatbelts, but in 1/72 I'm not too bothered.

The cockpit was painted up rather quickly and given a Citadel Nuln Oil wash. The instrument panel is full with nice raised detail, you can paint all this up if you want, but just like the rest of the cockpit, it received Nuln Oil wash.

The interior doesn't look that bad in my opinion. This model is likely going to be high up in a new pair of glass display cabinets that I will be building soon, at least that's the plan. Nose weight was added with my favourite thing to use, lead solder. The instructions are unclear and honestly, not very good at all, so I'm unsure how much, if any, is needed. The MiG-21 is a delta wing, so I suspect it does need a bit.

 

[Adam Poultney]

Got more pictures up now. 

Moving on with the build, the fuselage halves went together

Then the wings. The nose cone is just temporarily in place. There's some work to be done on seams along the top, but I just gave it a light sand because I am just building quick and easy at the minute.

Rear gear and many many smaller components were added. 2/10 for the instructions there, they are very unclear and it's difficult to tell where all the parts go.

I then primed the model black and with a light grey added some variation.

The masking worked perfectly. Just small strips of tape with blue tac. The model was airbrushed with Vallejo Model Air Steel, I don't have the aluminium one to hand and it's close enough for me. The green is Vallejo Model Air Gunship Green.

 

[Adam Poultney]

The decals in the kit are poor. They are yellowed and lack detail. Two colour schemes are provided with some black and white drawings to use as a guide.

They slide off the decal paper nicely enough in hot water, but you can see the yellow underside which isn't great for the White bits on the decals

The decalling process only took an evening to do. They went on on with Humbrol Decalfix, and the only problems were of my own making. 

[corsaircorp]

great build Adam !

And a very fast one !! post 3 and she's almost finished !!

Congrats !

Sincerely.

CC 

[Adam Poultney]

Just now, corsaircorp said:

great build Adam !

And a very fast one !! post 3 and she's almost finished !!

Congrats !

Sincerely.

CC 

She was finished when I got this post up finally in reality. I'm having some issues with uploading photos to Pinterest, so all the posts are dependent on getting them up. These are just the posts that would have gone up during the build.

This was finished in 3 evenings, one of which I hardly worked on the model on, and another had mostly ERJ 195 work.

There will be an RFI thread as soon as I get the pictures up.

[FPDPenguin]

Great build can't wait for the final product.

 

You've used nuln oil, which I've recently started using, great little buy. 

 

Do you find humbrol decalfix sticky at all?

Edited August 30, 2019 by FPDPenguin

[Adam Poultney]

1 hour ago, FPDPenguin said:

Great build can't wait for the final product.

 

You've used nuln oil, which I've recently started using, great little buy. 

 

Do you find humbrol decalfix sticky at all?

I've used Nuln Oil for years on wargaming models, it's great stuff! It and Agrax Earthshade are known as Liquid Skill sometimes.

Humbrol decalfix, yeah it's sticky. Initially I had a lot of trouble with it and hated the stuff, but I got it figured out and never have any trouble with it now. 

[Adam Poultney]

All the pictures are now sorted! Final update unless I decide to do any more with the model:

Light chipping was done  over the markings. I need to clear up the landing gear doors (just remembered that I haven't done that yet as I am typing this. I'll fix it in a bit)

The model received some washes to add a fair bit of grime, like he aircraft had been sitting around for a while not flying. These were a mixture of Citadel Nuln Oil, Seraphim Sepia (sounds like a Harry Potter spell!) and one of Vallejo's oil stain washes. There are some bits where this could have been done better, but I wanted to get this build quickly as I'm quite enjoying building like this right now; V Bombers or 1/48 stuff is what I do if I want a nice long build.

 

Originally I intended to pose the airbrakes as open, but the carpet monster had other ideas. Then I found the pieces and the instructions were just so unclear and the parts didn't exactly make it obvious as to how was supposed to put them together. Then I realised the gun pod goes over the centre airbrake, so that idea went out the window.

The area around the engine exhaust was painted usung another Citadel paint, Leadbelcher, what i believe to be a good equivalent to Zvezda's recommended Gunmetal colour seeing as Leadbelcher replaced Citadel's Gunmetal paint.

There are more photos to be uploaded in RFI. I will link the thread here once it is up.

 

Edited August 30, 2019 by Adam Poultney

[Adam Poultney]

And here it is. Ready for inspection, my MiG-21PFM "Phantom Killer".

 

[FPDPenguin]

27 minutes ago, Adam Poultney said:

I've used Nuln Oil for years on wargaming models, it's great stuff! It and Agrax Earthshade are known as Liquid Skill sometimes.

Humbrol decalfix, yeah it's sticky. Initially I had a lot of trouble with it and hated the stuff, but I got it figured out and never have any trouble with it now. 

So errr, how did you figure it out, if you wouldn't mind sharing 

[Adam Poultney]

9 minutes ago, FPDPenguin said:

So errr, how did you figure it out, if you wouldn't mind sharing 

Ok so this is probably stupid of me but at first I followed what Airfix said to do, I dipped the whole decal in the solution. Do not do this!

You should definitely gloss coat still, even though Airfix claims you don't need to. 

 

So, what I do is I use Citadel's 'Ardcoat for gloss, just because it's what is easy for me to get. I have a wargaming shop 10-15 minutes walk away. Then I put the decal in warm to hot water (slightly hotter than you are comfortable leaving your hand in is good). Next, while the decal is soaking (only needs ~20-30 seconds in the water, so take it out and put it on tissue paper to soak up some excess water. It should be taken out before it can slide free if it's whatever Airfix use normally for their decals), dip a brush in the decalfix and apply it liberally to the model where you will be putting the decal, then was your brush off in cold water (warm/hot can damage the brush). Slide the decal into place, then immediately brush on either warm or cold water, it doesn't' matter, on top to stop it sticking to your finger. Once the decal is positioned, apply more decal fix (not much) carefully on top and leave it for a few hours. 

During those few hours, if you accidentally mess up the decal or need to reposition it, soak a decent sized brush in water, and carefully try and force it under the side. Once it starts to go, you can carefully remove the whole thing by moving the brush underneath. To reapply, it's pretty much the same process, except the decal is now super delicate.

 

And wash the brushes afterwards in cold water!

 

This method works brilliantly with most decals, but anything with a horrible bit sticking out under may prove troublesome.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Adam Poultney

[exdraken]

Thanks for sharing your work process Adam!

Looks great!

[FPDPenguin]

Thanks, I'll give it a go on my next lot.