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Minion's Hind from the Horn, Mil Mi-24P Djibouti Finished!


modelling minion

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I have been looking forward to this GB for a long time, building things in more unusual colours and markings and hopefully getting a few other to consider building such subjects themselves. I have far too many subjects to choose from and would like a 12 month GB so that I can get a few of them done if thats alright with our moderators, I really don't think its asking too much.😉

And what to choose for the GB? Far too many to choose from really and if I wasn't tied up with other GB responsibilities I would be starting more than one subject, I still might. A very popular design across Africa is the ubiquitous Mil Mi-24 Hind, wherever there is trouble there seems to be a Hind, and there is often trouble unfortunately. So a Hind it is, and this time I shall be building a Zvezda one, a P with the twin cannon on the starboard fuselage.

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All still sealed in it's original packing;

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Now which of the many operators to finish it as? Fortunately DP Casper have come to the rescue of those of us who like to build our egg beaters in unusual markings recently with a couple of excellent sheets, one covering various Asian countries and the one I shall be using here which covers Africa;

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Lots of very nice options available there, but as most of the Hinds on the sheet are of the D/E type with the turret under the front cockpit it does help to narrow down my choices a bit, but fortunately one of the choices jumps out at me, a P from Djibouti in a rather fetching non-standard camouflage scheme;

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Very nice! I shall have to get an Mi-17 at some point to go along side it.

The sheet itself looks very nice quality but I have never used them before so I hope they work as well as they look;

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I have a couple of other builds on the go at the minute so I need to get at least one of them finished before I can make a start on this one, hopefully very soon.

 

Thanks for looking in.

 

Craig.

 

Edited by modelling minion
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Oooooh. Nice.

 

Looking forward to this one. I am using my old Hasegawa 'Hind' because I really ought to, but those Zvezda kits are amazing. Probably get one (or two) myself, at some point. 

 

I'm also hoping those decals go on ok :D

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27 minutes ago, Smudge said:

Oooooh. Nice.

 

Looking forward to this one. I am using my old Hasegawa 'Hind' because I really ought to, but those Zvezda kits are amazing. Probably get one (or two) myself, at some point. 

 

I'm also hoping those decals go on ok :D

Cheers Smudge,

 

At least with your Hasegawa kit you can do most of the options on the sheet, the Zvezda E (which is the one you would need for these) is as rare as rocking horse poo for some reason, you can get P's and the new Mi-35 M's easily but not the version that is the most widely operated. Mind you I see that Mali operate the new version too, and I just might have one (or two) in the stash.....

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46 minutes ago, modelling minion said:

Thanks Paul, lets hope that I can do it justice.

Will you be joining in on this GB?

I have no doubts you will craig.

I tend to bite off more than I can chew with the amount of group build entrees so I’ll sit this one out.

It’s scooter time soon though!

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9 hours ago, Col. said:

Cracking subject choice Craig :thumbsup:

 

A year-long Africa GB you say? Great idea. Oh @Enzo Matrix...

I don't think its asking too much, and I would still have more than enough potential projects to last me a very long time.

2 hours ago, CliffB said:

That decal sheet artwork is incredible.  It looks like a scene from Where's Wally? :winkgrin:

There is a lot to take in isn't there Cliff, this sheet could keep me busy for years!

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6 minutes ago, vppelt68 said:

DP Casper sheets are in a class of their own. I´ve been hunting their Operation Flax sheet for years, unsuccessfully. I even asked them for a reprint but no, they said no :weep:

Thats good to know VP, the quality part not the fact that you can't find a sheet you want. I know these go for silly money at times which is why I snapped this one up when it came out.

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2 minutes ago, modelling minion said:

Thats good to know VP, the quality part not the fact that you can't find a sheet you want. I know these go for silly money at times which is why I snapped this one up when it came out.

Unfortunately I was only referring to the quantity of options on their sheets, no personal experience of the quality.

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Time I made a start on this one!

The finesse of some of the moulding on this kit is superb, and you get a lot of details to add such as engines, transmission, cabin interior and a few other things too, but these have their downside too. You get the option of having various panels open or not and when you choose the "not" option like me then you find that they are not the best fit, don't get me wrong they are not terrible, just not great, you can see the gaps around some of them in the picture below of one of the fuselage halves;

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They should disappear with the application of some PPP.

I have got the basics assembled for the cockpit area and ready for some paint;

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All nice flat surfaces, problem is in the real thing they aren't. All the myriad of dials and switches are represented by decals to be applied after the base coat is on, all very reminiscent of ESCI kits from the the early 1980's and not at all what you expect of a modern tooling that goes to the length of giving you nicely detailed engines that 95% of builders will cover up with a panel, come on Zvezda get your priorities right! And if you think it can't really be done well in 1/72 then have a look at my recent build of a HobbyBoss Hind in the Gulf War GB, that cockpit is superb.

The interior of the port fuselage cockpit insert even has a couple of quite large moulding dents to deal with;

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Should disappear once that filler is smoothed out but it isn't necessary as the other side, which gets hidden, is lovely and smooth.

 

Now some of the detail parts, namely the engines and transmission;

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These are all made up from multiple parts and are very nice, the engines have other accessories to add to them which I won't be bothering with as they will be underneath panels but the engines need building to be able to fit the last piece of the exhaust to later. There quite a few other detail parts that fit inside the engine compartment but again as they won't be visible I won't be fitting them. As I am having the troop compartment closed up I am not adding anything inside it as once again nothing will be visible, there are enough details in the kit to make this interesting if you had the doors open but beware as there are a couple of those moulding dents which will bee just as visible as the details and will be tricky to deal with.

Tonight's task will be to make a start on the basic cockpit painting following the colours I used on my Iraqi Hind.

 

Thats it for today so thanks for looking in and as usual all comments and criticisms are gratefully received.

 

Craig.

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Inspired by my own Hasegawa Hind and this build I have splashed out on a couple of these Zvezda Hind's. A nice quirky A and an E. I am surprised to see the gaps around those parts compared to the Hasegawa kit, but I guess the trade off is all the extra detail. 

 

I have seen some nice aftermarket colour printed 3D cockpit interiors which would really be a great addition to this kit. Although I am not usually one for chucking lots of money at a model with aftermarket stuff, it might be worth it for these Hinds.

 

I will check out your Hobbyboss build, (even though I've commited to the Zvezda ones now). How do they rate shape accuracy wise?

 

Edited by Smudge
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11 minutes ago, Smudge said:

Inspired by my own Hasegawa Hind and this build I have splashed out on a couple of these Zvezda Hind's. A nice quirky A and an E. I am surprised to see the gaps around those parts compared to the Hasegawa kit, but I guess the trade off is all the extra detail. 

 

I have seen some nice aftermarket colour printed 3D cockpit interiors which would really be a great addition to this kit. Although I am not usually one for chucking lots of money at a model with aftermarket stuff, it might be worth it for these Hinds.

 

I will check out your Hobbyboss build, (even though I've commited to the Zvezda ones now). How do they rate shape accuracy wise?

 

You did well to find an E, for some reason the only ones easy to get your hands on have been the P and the new Mi-35. Good to see you have an A too, I really like the A and they were even used in Africa.😉

 

I have seen the Quinta 3D printed cockpit for these and it does look very nice, but seriously bumps up the price of the kit.

 

The Zvezda Hinds are the only ones to correctly incorporate the anti-torque kink in the fuselage just aft of the cockpit section, but then again it really isn't very noticeable in real life never mind 1/72 scale.

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