Warriors of Light - 1/48th Digital Su-24M - completed

[trickyrich]

First off this is just a reference/inspirational (???) build and will NOT go into the gallery...... plus I've I'm tired of "photo-bombing" my Phantom build!  

 

As some will know I started this build over 4 years ago, can't even remember if it was for a GB or just something extra, anyway she stalled and she has sat on the "top shelf of doom" for way too long. Now with resent events I felt like I really must finish her....... and she nearly is (this is almost like an Enzo build...here's them model, here she is nearly complete! ). 

 

So grab a coffee/tea/pint of beer strap yourselves in and off we go.....

 

... so the model is Trumpeter's infamous 1/48th Su-24, which is the only game in town (there is a resin Collect-Aire beast, meant to be a little bit better, but super rare and expensive if you find one) in this scale and it's your typical Trumpeter beast with all the common issues!

 

 

You could build this from the box and it would look ok (after quite a bit of work) until you compared it to photos of the real thing, it has shape issues!

 

You get lots of bits....

 

 

...and lots of stores, very useful for other projects!

 

 

Now did some one say "is there any AM stufff going to be used on this build?"......... is the El Popie Catholic?    Fear not Uncle Richie is not going to let you down!

 

Full resin Cockpit, resin U/c wells, resin Exhaust cans, resin wheels, full Eduard PE set, and metal Pitot probe....... 

 

 

 

and not forgetting the full resin Komplete Korrection set from Komplekt Zp,

 

 

 

 

 

As can be seen the correct set is quite extensive because of the issues with her. These correct set are long since out of production, I only found mine by chance.

 

So the shape issues (sorry not the easiest to see in these photos), the nose has a more pronounced droop to it than the kits one and the top line is nearly completely straight and not slightly rounded like the kit. Luckily Trumpeter provides this as a seperate module making it's replacing quite simple.

 

 

Te intakes, again the shape isn't quite right and splitter plate way too thick.

 

 

Ok the back is where it all goes really wrong!

 

 

The engines are way too wide apart and their size is all wrong! Shown ever better here.

 

 

So lots of work required to produce something accurate and with some nice detail....... should be fairly straightforward and simple build!!

 

 

 

Part 2 coming up after I've had a coffee. 

[trickyrich]

ok pt2........ that coffee id take a bit longer....... it's now beer o'clock!  

 

Right building stages, and very typical Trumpeter in the way this model built.

 

As mentioned it had a full Aires U?c bay replacement, and it actually fitted without issues. Pity all this lovely detail would be hidden, didn't realise at the time that the U?c doors are closed on the ground.

 

 

The new nose section just replaces the old one, by just sliding in.

 

 

The thickness of the new resin  part and the detail matches the Trumpeter part so even the Aires cockpit fitted with out issues, that was truly amazing! I used the Eduard cockpit panels set as it looked better.

 

 

I don't have photos of the next stages, but the new rear section went in quite well, the rear section on end fuselage had to be cut out of the for the new tail unit to fit, the joins weren't to bad either which was nice.

 

 

Also at this stage I had to decide what to do with the exhaust cans. The kit ones were wrong and plain horrible, the Mod Kit ones just lacked detail and weren't that great either. In the end I bought some AMG replacements, now these were awesome!

 

                            AMG                                             Komplekt Zp                                                    Trumpeter

 

Now that looks better!

 

 

The front was not so good! One side of the rear section of the new resin part was badly warped, heating didn't help either. So the result hollow was filled with plastic strip and re-profiled, it took some time but you got a much better result than just filling it with filler.

 

 

The new intakes fitted quite well too.

 

The Eduard exterior set was used to enhance some of the detail that was missing, or wrong.

 

 

As a result of the new front fuselage section the original canopy now would not fit, the the profile was wrong. Unfortunately this is the one area the correction kit was a let down. The new canopy doors didn't really fit well and the acetate windows and front screen were a right pain to fit and get to sit right!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

The gear was kit parts, Trumpeter supply either a plastic of metal nose gear, while the main is plastic with either a plastic or metal support inside, went the metal! Plus I replaced the axles with brass tube for addition strength, plus she now had nice resin wheels over those horrible rubber ones!

 

 

 

So this is pretty much how she sat for 3 years or more. I think the scheme intimidated me the most, it is/was one of the more difficult ones (probably is the most difficult) I have done.

 

 

 

Next time, probably tomorrow, painting!!!!

 

[Col.]

Glad to see the resurrection of this one Rich

[Wings unlevel]

Wow, a labour of love!

[trickyrich]

thanks all, Pt 3 will be up tomorrow, she's so close to being finished now, just the usual wee things left to do that take so much time to finish!

[coneheadff]

Looking great Rich!

[exdraken]

Nice to see her here!

[Hewy]

I've  got one of these and many of the extra  parts you have too, mine never gets in the " to build queue " one day maybe , it looks a total handfull , you've  done a fine job so far though 

[Marlin]

Lovely build Rich.

I've got almost the same resin goodies in the stash for my planned build. 

I bought the Trumpeter kit in 2008 I think, and have since the been collecting resin for it. 

When I'm going to build it i don't know, but it'll be built someday. 

 

/Bosse

[trickyrich]

18 hours ago, Hewy said:

I've  got one of these and many of the extra  parts you have too, mine never gets in the " to build queue " one day maybe , it looks a total handfull , you've  done a fine job so far though 

 

It's not a frightening model, there are plenty worse let me tell you!!! She is such an impressive and large model and does look good when done, it's just your typical Trumpie build.

 

It has a huge range of stores but they are quite basic looking so AM replacements would improve.

 

To make the build easier I wouldn't replace the nose section, that is the one area that will probably give you issues

 

14 hours ago, Marlin said:

Lovely build Rich.

I've got almost the same resin goodies in the stash for my planned build. 

I bought the Trumpeter kit in 2008 I think, and have since the been collecting resin for it. 

When I'm going to build it i don't know, but it'll be built someday. 

 

/Bosse

 

Come on Bosse you know you want to build it!!! 

 

As I have mentioned to Hewy, if you want to save yourself some trouble leave off the nose replacement. While the overall shape/profile is wrong you can only notice it when comparing to photos. The tail on the other hand is just so wrong it has to be replaced. That correction is quite simple and straightforward and well worth the effort. The intakes, it's more of an improvement, but again a very simple correction to do.

 

I will post Pt. 3 this arvo, and go a bit more into the scheme and colours etc.

 

She's about 99.9% completed just a couple of annoying things to finish, plus I have some how managed to loose one of the AOA probes...... guess it's easy to do as they are soooo small, it's been 4 years and I've moved house once. Anyway Ukraine pilots fly so close to the ground anyway they don't both using the instruments anyway! 

 

 

 

[Marlin]

4 hours ago, trickyrich said:

Come on Bosse you know you want to build it!!! 

 

It'll be built, and it's currently slated for a 2024 start.

Might do a double build with the Su-34 as a companion. 

/Bosse

[trickyrich]

Going to do an Enzo huh!  

[trickyrich]

ok time for Pt. 3, only a few days late! 

 

So I have/had a primed model so the next step painting and the scheme.

 

A the title says she's the Digital scheme, no boring camo schemes to be seen here, just lots of masking fun and for that I used Fotbot's for this task. They are part of a series called "The Warriors of Light", which were masks and decals covering Ukraine aircraft with proceeds going to an aviation museum for aircraft restorations. They also included L-39 Albatross, MiG-29UB, MiG-29 9-13, Mi-24, Su25UB, Su-25M1Su-27UBM-1, Su-27S/P, basically their current serving aircraft.

 

 

The masks are super nice, not the vinyl ones you often get but some super thin ones that look like they are made of a plastic type of material. Not sure what it is but they really stick to the model, no bleeding to worry about here. Though they do warn/recommend, and I can attest to this is, that you use a solvent based paint for the scheme as I can guarantee that these mask will lift the paint off. I managed to lift patches off and I was using lacquer based paint!

 

The decal they produce are super nice, really thin and go on really nice and for the most part completely disappear, a little bit of decal solution is useful too. (But oh was there some other fun to be had with these decals!!!!! )

 

 

I didn't document the masking/painting (I hadn't planned to write it up) so this will mostly be going through the process and the issues I found.

 

First up the colours, they give you the colours using RAL and FS. reference numbers and strangely Vallejo number (that paint would lift straight off with these masks!!!!). I originally spent ages trying to match these reference numbers up to manufacturers colours and this is where you can come unstuck! There are a couple of paint sets available but try to match the colours with the paints you like to used, lacquers in this case is/was a right pain. Anyway after lots of tests I came up with the colours I used, I know they're not 100% correct but I don't have the real thing to compare with. The paints in this case are all AK's Real Colours......as usual I can't get the MRP paints I wanted to use.

 

 

Ok how to paint this beast. There are 2 ways to do this type of scheme with masks, #1 the easy (sort of) mask and paint from dark colour to light, #2 hard (as in very time consuming, even longer than this took) light to dark

 

#1, you spray either the whole model the darkest colour first or just the ereas that need to be then cover with the first mask. Nice and simple except you need to know exactly where this mask needs to go and at the end all the masks pretty well need to line up with other masks. So you need to put the big outside ones on first to get the positions right the add the inners ones until you get the first one in the correct position....then you have to remove all the out masks. Paint the next colour and start the next mask positioning all over again. The previous masks need to stay in place and you need to mask the gaps.... then repeat again 2 more times!!

 

Here I'm laying down the last set of masks for the 4th colour, to get to this stage there was 12+ hours of masking involved and I still had a bit more to do still.

 

 

It's really time consuming, but it does work, though you do loose a lot of that nice panel line pre-shading done earlier.....and I don't recommend doing panel-line in-between as it won't look right.

 

#2 method, I haven't done this yet but will try it on the Su-25. This involves painting the model in the main colour first (in this case it would have been the grey used on the undersides) then applying the outer mask. Some of the mask will be outside of the model and parts of the mask will overlap other masks, so you would need to do the scheme in sections, complete the pattern it one area then more to the next. It'd be very time consuming but I think the final finish will be far superior. Guess I'll find out on the Su-25.

 

So with the masks off, this is how she looked (I have photo-bombed these earlier). This is prior to any touch-up work, which surprisingly there was very little needed. You might just be able to see the one spot where the paint lifted, LH elevator.

 

 

But the masks worked so well, the patterning is really nice and sharp.

 

 

The 2 pain grey "boxes" to the right show that you do need to be spot-on with colour positioning prior to masking, but simple to correct.

 

 

 

Again a couple of the darker "boxes" needed to be correct, plus there are a few minor alignment issues with some of the pattern. Using method #2 this wouldn't have been an issue.

 

Ok decaling time.

 

As mentioned they were super nice decals to use, nicely printed, thin, adhered well, even nicely numbered as well........BUT!!!  The numbering on the decal instructions was diabolical to say the least, made "Where's Wally" look like a simple 2yo's game!! The decals numbers were all in sequence on the sheet, but their placement was completely random on the model! I spent a Sunday and 4 evenings doing them and I gave up in the end with the tiny ones as I would have gone more mad than usual!

 

Anyway looks quite special with them on.

 

 

 

 

A nice simple weapons load, a bit changed from what I originally planned, but not quite what I wanted I managed to loose/destroy the pylon mounts for the 2nd set of rocket pods some time back, which is a shame as there is a great photo of a one of these Su-24's with 4 of them fitted. On a lot of photos of these aircraft empty bomb racks seem to be a standard fitment to the rear fuselage mounts.

 

o next post is the final one, I should have her done today, just a few bit to finish and tidy up and she's done.

 

[arfa1983]

Looks amazing. Making me question if I really want to do a similar scheme for an Academy Mig-29. 

 

I never realised before but the Su24 looks like a knockoff F-111!

[Hewy]

Rich, that looks so good !👍

[modelling minion]

Superb work Rich.

You have done a great job on her, the digital camo my have been a bit of a pain to apply but the end result is most definitely worth it.

 

🇺🇦

[Blitz23]

Looks so so good!

[trickyrich]

22 hours ago, arfa1983 said:

Looks amazing. Making me question if I really want to do a similar scheme for an Academy Mig-29. 

 

I never realised before but the Su24 looks like a knockoff F-111!

 

I think she was pretty much "inspired" by the F-111 though it was never as capable as the F-111.

 

Well here she is, finally done after starting her over 4 years ago! 

 

I won't say it's one of my better builds but it was a learning experience and if I have to say, an enjoyable build....... though it's 4 years since the main construction bits so have probably have forgotten all the horrible parts! 

 

There will be additional photos in the RFI section, thanks for following this "short" build!  The next on the production line is at the bottom. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

.... this is it, she'll be in digital scheme, though decals this time.

 

 

 

 

 

[Col.]

Beautiful result Rich. 

Your next project looks tasty as well. Although you may need to buy another seat for it. As well as another kit for that seats. Plus some more aftermarket to bring the new kit up to the same standard as the seats...

[modelling minion]

A superb result Rich, as always.

Well worth all the time and effort that you have put into it.

I'm sure that your Su-27 will look just as good if not better.

Very well done mate.

 

🇺🇦

[coneheadff]

Great looking Su-24, Rich!

And a fantastic new project. Hope you can find the decals. I searched the whole net, but can't find them...all sold out

[trickyrich]

3 hours ago, Col. said:

Beautiful result Rich. 

Your next project looks tasty as well. Although you may need to buy another seat for it. As well as another kit for that seats. Plus some more aftermarket to bring the new kit up to the same standard as the seats...

 

haha, I just saw that too, I was wondering where I put those seats!!   They are for (well one is) for my F-15J, the GWM seat is actually very nice!

 

2 hours ago, coneheadff said:

Great looking Su-24, Rich!

And a fantastic new project. Hope you can find the decals. I searched the whole net, but can't find them...all sold out

 

I spanned a set straight from DXM as couple of weeks ago, they should be here shortly...... I wish they had been masks though!

[desert falcon]

As always an admirable result from the TR FLUGWERKE  

[81-er]

That was definitely worth all the effort, Rich, it's a fantastic model.

 

James