SU-35 by Great Wall Hobby (GWH) 1:48 - WIP log

[Paintychops]

Hello all, currently working on this beast of a kit, and following a request, I thought I'd share this build log with you. Hopefully some of you may find this useful.

 

Here are some photos of the cockpit;

 

 

 

(Apologies for the slight blurriness of the pics, they seemed alright when I took them..)

 

Plenty has already been said about the amount of detail in this kit, & I can only confirm this. No need for any 'detail-up' parts here! of course, the downside is there are a lot of small fiddly parts that can easily be lost. Thankfully the fit of everything has been pretty good so far. I've used a mix of Vallejo, Scale 75 & Citadel acrylic paints for this, with the main colours airbrushed on. The interior blue was a mix of about three different colours as I didn't have the exact colour I was looking for. I was looking for a blue with a bit of vibrancy that makes the cockpit and all its details stand out, as well as closely match the real thing (or from what I can best ascertain from stock photos online). The floor colour looks messy, but once the seat is applied so little will be visible I didn't bother to spend too much time on it, a lesson learnt from previous builds. 

 

Here's a couple of (blurry) photos of the cockpit with seat attached;

 

 

For the weathering I used enamel washes/panel liners by AK & AMMO, with a small amount of weathering powder added around the footwells. My biggest concern is the decals - one of the biggest complaints of this kit is to do with the thickness of the decals provided, & the few added to the seat do appear more like vinyl stickers in real life. Whilst very detailed, I didn't want to attempt to add the decals of the powered up screens as I could see that going very wrong. It's also made me think about getting the aftermarket decals from Begemot for this kit, although I didn't really want to spend any more money on this.

 

Overall I don't think this is the best cockpit I've painted, but considering how small it is, & that it'll be buried within the housing of the main body, it should work out ok. Any questions/comments, let me know!

[Paintychops]

Despite the fact there is only a short time difference between these updates, this is a four week update as I'd meant to upload the previous a month ago, but failed to do so. Oh well.

 

The next step has been the wheelbays. A very small update, as I've been out of action due to a shoulder op, but back at it now. Here are the latest pics:

 

Once again the level of detail provided is incredible - all those cables are separate parts that need to be carefully inserted in. They are fiddly, & I did manage to accidentally break one, after placing each one on blu-tack to paint then remove. Despite that it glued back ok, and doesn't notice. The fittings here were a bit more tricky; this isn't as well engineered as a Tamiya kit, but still of a very high standard. The individual parts were hand painted, with just a simple acrylic wash (Citadel 'Nuln Oil') Although tempting to add more detail & weathering effects, these parts will never be seen once fully assembled, this log being the most attention they'll ever get. I've followed the 'official' colours listed within the instruction manual, although there is one printing error where it lists the colour of piping as being 'black green' when it should be silver - it's the only time that colour is listed! But it's not a big deal overall.

 

Next step now will be the assembly and painting of the air intakes - a somewhat dull part that I'll be keeping very simple as it'll hardly be seen when assembled, but important as it'll need to be fitted before I can start attaching the main body.