ZHOU Kun Posted July 14, 2021 Author Share Posted July 14, 2021 (edited) I added some German gray to several panels, by masking and airbrushing. I am also updating my progress on scalemates, any who cannot see photos here may click the link below: https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=67957&p=albums I depended heavily on airbrushing, so I spent a lot of time on attaching and removing masking tapes 🙂 There are some panels with antennas underneath, I painted them with German gray Here comes the High Frequency communication antenna I need some correction when i messed up these panels. Polygon did not work for those circular panels this time! Edited August 5, 2021 by ZHOU Kun 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted July 23, 2021 Author Share Posted July 23, 2021 (edited) For those who sees 'spacer.png' only, you may visit here for uploaded WIP photos: https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=67957&p=albums Free hand painting: adding various metallic colors to the main gear bogeys and struts. ALso there were alignment marks between wheels and tyres, Also, I did a little washing with Oil colors, then attach the legs to the airframe AMK provided a few types of refueling probe and doors. The MiG-31B has the probes and MiG-31BS was upgraded version of MiG-31DZ (Also has in-flight-refueling probe), so I attached them. There is a refueling light inside the fairing, I painted it orange over a gray base after studying some reference photos. This model airplane has refuel probe door , although on many of the MiG-31B/BS/BM/BSM the door was missing Edited August 5, 2021 by ZHOU Kun 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted July 23, 2021 Author Share Posted July 23, 2021 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted August 5, 2021 Author Share Posted August 5, 2021 (edited) Only two or three hours per week, nearly no vacant time for modeling. The dry fitting of landing gear and doors is still underway. Some parts, such as the air intake flaps needed adjustment badly, reduced my pace. I am wondering if Tamiya will release a MiG-31 some years later. The doors and linkages of MiG-31 were sophisticated, it was difficult to place the components at the right place in merely one try. Repeatedly adjustment really took great amount of time. While building Tamiya’s Tomcat, doors and gear links just snapped in easily in the right place And that may be the exact reason I made a wish to Tamiya:-) For more photos: and for those who see 'spacer.png' only, please visit: https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=67957&p=albums Managed to put two small LED lights inside the afterburner cans. Dim light came out from exhaust nozzle and some afterburner effects was achieved in door at night. If I am going to add similar effects to day light photos, I may need stronger LED lights The fitting of airbrake with actuator rod worked OK. It is just some dry fitting. The airbrake doors had not been painted yet The intake flap did not match with the lower part of fuselage very well, needed some trimming Here came the most sophisticated part: the links that actuated landing gear doors when extending and retracting the main undercarriage Drag strut fitted OK Managed to attach the nose gear leg door to the strut. The drag strut need some treatment when the mold line seemed so obvious Edited August 5, 2021 by ZHOU Kun 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted August 7, 2021 Author Share Posted August 7, 2021 I spent some time this morning to work out the fitting of landing gear components and doors. And, the air intake flap did not fit well with fuselage, I had to trim and cut some plastic out of the flaps to make them fit better. Nevertheless, the seams still exist. Unpainted airbrake doors fit well with fuselage once you make the plugs thinner The drag strut of main landing gear needed extreme care when fitting. One end fits into a small hole at the end of main gear strut, whiel the other snaps the gear door linkage inside the gear bay The doors of main gears need careful positioning. I referred to some photos of the real MiG-31B/BMs The nose gear doors fitted better than main gear ones The 8TP IRST was moulded in two halves. I wanted to depict it retracted. I used only half of it and then slice the clear radome in half. One needed to be careful not to drop it through the under-nose hole. It was very hard to get it back out The overview photos looks good...next step I would paint them 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted August 8, 2021 Author Share Posted August 8, 2021 Finally the gear bay doors have got their colors. The inside was C311 from Mr.Color, while the outside was the airframe color. Although it is still a dry fit for most of the doors, the positions of the doors seems decent As for the 8TP IRST pod, it was painted Mr.Color C37 German gray. The lens were given an extra coat of Clear Orange 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted August 10, 2021 Author Share Posted August 10, 2021 Hello I am updating at late night. I also updated photos at my scalemates album. https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=67957&p=albums I somehow messed up with the nose strut door, the landing and taxiing lights has shrinks in the center(And I had applied Super Metallic Chrome to the lights). I would like to apply some Mr.Surfacer to check if there is mould line or shrink prior to painting next time when building AMK And this is what I had done to my EF-18AM nose gear taxiing light, freehand painting with Mr.Color Super Metallic worked good then... Attaching the door to nose gear strut, it looked better than watch at the door alone The main gear doors are made up of 3 parts: the airbrake door, the middle door and the strut door (most aft). I finally managed to put the link that actuated the middle door in place. It looked good. And this is the overview of the complete airframe from above (with the airplane inverted) Some complemental photos: The side view: tilt angle of gear strut and bogeys looked OK 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted August 20, 2021 Author Share Posted August 20, 2021 The Vympel R-40DT and R-33 long range AAMs took a great amount of time to paint. Right now I have finished the first two tones: Darkened steel (Mr.Color C28 Steel) and White (Mr. Color C107 Character White and a little C311 Grayish White) It took me three and a half minutes to remove masking tapes for every R-33 round. So you can imagine how long did it take applying masking tape to every missile. My scalemates album can be visited here: https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=67957&p=albums 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted August 20, 2021 Author Share Posted August 20, 2021 painting of missiles began with Mr. Surfacer since AMK's R-33 and R-40 rounds had mould lines on them. One had to remove those lines and apply Mr.Surfacer to check if they are removed properly Then, the missiles were painted with Mr.Color C28 Steel. What followed next was the tremendous masking work! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted August 21, 2021 Author Share Posted August 21, 2021 The cupboard is now really crowded! 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted August 24, 2021 Author Share Posted August 24, 2021 The masking and painting of R-33 AAMs has continued. I masked up the silver rings on the missile body and then painted Mr. Color C8 Silver with a hand brush. The used masking tapes, A LOT OF small strips! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted August 26, 2021 Author Share Posted August 26, 2021 (edited) The gray tone was added to the leading edges of elevators, the fuses on the R-33 AAMs. Hand brushed with the help from some Tamiya masking tapes Here came the result: Missile adaptors added to the bottom of fuselage MiG-31B/BS was 'armed' with four R-33 long range AAMs plus the R-40 AAMs. Here comes the biggest difference between MiG-31B and BM, the former still carries giant R-40 AAMs so they still have a pair of large missile pylons under their wings Edited August 26, 2021 by ZHOU Kun 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted August 27, 2021 Author Share Posted August 27, 2021 A little updating on the Vympel R-40TD Infra-Red guided AAMs. They finally got their colors nearly 6 months after I started this project. I painted the two missiles with Mr.Color laquer paints. Masked and then sprayed. The painting of R-40DTs are easier than R-33 missiles. The paint scheme was derieved from AMC's resin products. For more pics, please visit: https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=67957&p=albums 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted September 5, 2021 Author Share Posted September 5, 2021 Decal works began with port and starboard, followed by top and bottom side. There were hundreds of stencils. I followed the instruction sheets and applied them one by one, after which I marked a tick on each number. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted September 5, 2021 Author Share Posted September 5, 2021 Stencils on Vympel R-33 and R-40TD AAMs are also finished. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 5, 2021 Share Posted September 5, 2021 I don’t really like jets but I’m impressed, especially the work on the landing gear to simulate weight off! One question though? Is that emerald green in the cockpit the correct colour? It seems pretty bright for a war plane😳 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted September 5, 2021 Author Share Posted September 5, 2021 (edited) 24 minutes ago, BillF67 said: I don’t really like jets but I’m impressed, especially the work on the landing gear to simulate weight off! One question though? Is that emerald green in the cockpit the correct colour? It seems pretty bright for a war plane😳 I am glad that you like the concept I have been working on. Yes they are either emerald green or light blue in the era of CRT and LCD muti-functional displays. Russian aeronautics engineers have different interpretation of human-factor engineering inside the cockpit, whereas western cockpits are generally gray Here are some examples with the MiG-31BS and BM models: Edited September 5, 2021 by ZHOU Kun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BillF67 Posted September 5, 2021 Share Posted September 5, 2021 That really is bright😎. I wonder if there’s a scientific reason or is it just that they don’t like pilots? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted September 10, 2021 Author Share Posted September 10, 2021 Hello, I am updating with weathered version of my MiG-31BS 'Blue 16' Unfortunately, the front part of pitot head was lost when the MiG's nose hit my Zippo lighter liquid can 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted September 10, 2021 Author Share Posted September 10, 2021 And miracle sometimes happen... I had found the lost part of the pitot tube on the floor that night. You may notice that I had prepared 2 steel tubes, one long and one short. They are for different circumstances...For example, I had to place the airplane closer to ground since I did not have enough height in my cabinet for this MiG 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted September 10, 2021 Author Share Posted September 10, 2021 On 06/09/2021 at 01:23, BillF67 said: That really is bright😎. I wonder if there’s a scientific reason or is it just that they don’t like pilots? I thought they did their research and came to the idea of painting emerald green. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted September 12, 2021 Author Share Posted September 12, 2021 、、 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted September 12, 2021 Author Share Posted September 12, 2021 the finishing line is near finally. I took the MiG to the balcony and took a set of pre-finishing photos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZHOU Kun Posted September 13, 2021 Author Share Posted September 13, 2021 literally this project is complete. Stay tuned for final reveal:-) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Serkan Sen Posted September 13, 2021 Share Posted September 13, 2021 23 hours ago, ZHOU Kun said: the finishing line is near finally. I took the MiG to the balcony and took a set of pre-finishing photos Very impressive and highly skilled build. Also I admire your courage risking this beautiful aircraft by placing at the edge of balcony... 😁 Serkan 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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