GWH Mig-29 SMT 1/48

[Steve64]

Hello friends,

I’ve been building Great Wall Hobby’s Mig-29 SMT. It’s an interesting kit. There is a lot of lovely crisp detail mixed in with some fit problems and the odd mis-mould. The joint between the engine nacelles and the lower fuselage was a problem on my kit. As were the landing gear bays. Even so, after filling, sanding, and deploying all the usual tricks we use to fix problems, it’s ready for a clean before painting. There are some good references online showing very weathered aircraft and I’m going for that look.

If you’re wondering why the landing gear is already in place, it is because the attachment points are flimsy and I wanted to get a good bond without destroying paintwork. Luckily, everything down there is painted in shades of grey, so I’m hoping not to have to go crazy with masking.

Here’s the assembled kit minus a few parts that are being painted separately.





Happy modelling folks

[digger303]

[Garion77]

Well it already seems better then the Academy (if I remember right not sure) one I've built that was a disaster on all fronts.

[Steve64]

Hi Digger and Francis,

Thanks for looking in. I wouldn’t say this kit is a disaster like the Academy one, but it does need a lot of care because the fit ranges from precise to terrible, with no way to tell which you’ll get before dry-fitting parts. There are some very nice details including slide moulded missiles (and that means four small mould lines to clean up on each one).

I put down some primer today. I’ll be painting in lacquers, and for my style, they provide plenty of bite, so I primed where there’s photo-etch or a to check seam lines. You can make it out in the shots below and also see some overspray from where I painted the hard-to-reach places dark grey before assembly. I’m hoping that will create fake shadows if I can't get in there with the airbrush later.

One conundrum is the exact colours to use for the camouflage. Online photos are crisp but the colours are inconsistent. For example, the base colour ranges from a very light grey, through a light bluish grey to a more light grey/tan, depending on the photo. The other colours seem to do the same chameleon trick. I think I’m going to pick one reference and stick to that.

Here are a couple of shots showing where I primed. She's looking a bit messy now, but the paint will tidy everything up before I make it intentionally messy with weathering. Funny game this isn’t it?

Happy modelling and happy Easter guys.

[RangerNeil]

Build looks excellent to me.
As a thought - have you considered looking at the Akan paint range? They are all acrylic (I think) but they match the colours to the actual ones used on the aircraft in question. Might be a bit tricky to get hold of at the moment, what with the Ukraine situation.

This is the set for the Mig 29: https://www.lindenhillimports.com/store ... 310.html#/

[Steve64]

Hey Neil and fellow modellers,

Thanks for looking in and thanks for the tip. I forgot about Akan paints and already went for the ‘Real Colours’ range. Having just laid down the first coat, I wonder how real the colour match is, but these Migs seem to come in all sorts of shades so I decided to go with the flow.

I plan to do some weathering with the airbrush but mostly use oils. Here you can see some basic painting, with the large central fuel tank weathered a bit, and the start of the fading and staining on the underside. I’m going to contrast fresh-looking missiles and underwing tanks with a rather tatty aircraft. Let’s see how that works out.

Thanks for looking in, and happy modelling.

[digger303]

Looking very good and one small thing that stood out was the staining/ weathering oil stains as being very well done.

[DRUMS01]

Very nice so far. I've always admired this aircraft ever since they were demonstrated at air shows many years ago.

Keep it up, looking good!

[Elve1984]

Nice work, i like the paintwork.

[Steve64]

Hi folks,

I'm sorry it has taken me so long to write an update. That irritating thing called life got in the way of my posting, even though modelling continued.

There are a few progress shots pre-weathering below. The detail on this kit is exquisitely painful. There are dozens of tiny and authentic-looking decals on the fuselage and stores. The go down beautifully, but applying them is an act of expert hand-eye coordination made a zillion times less enjoyable because the numbering on the decal sheets does not match the numbering on the instructions. To make matters worse, there are no instructions at all for the fuselage stencilling. Resorting to references and the instructions from other kits helped to figure things out (thank you Scalemates). Even so, there's some guesswork involved. I've been squinting at tiny markings through magnifying goggles which almost disappear when viewed with the naked eye. And, there is still more to do. I saved the worst/best until last. Why do I bother? I have an addiction to detail, and an opinion that all the tiny markings create the impression of a more authentic whole, even if the exact detail of each is lost to the eye. This is also chance to exercise my patience.









Happy modelling!

[digger303]

Love the decal detailing and I'm in no doubt that there is lots of patience and the occassional swearing going on, but I do believe they add a high degree of realism.

[cor]

Looking very nice

[Steve64]

Thanks very much for the encouragement gents. Just to give you an idea of how good and tiny some of these decals are here's a shot of a couple. These aren't the smallest! I couldn't get my camera to focus on those.

On the bench...



...and zoomed in



P.S. in case you are building this kit, there's an excellent reference here:

https://www.net-maquettes.com/pictures/ ... alkaround/

Happy modelling

[digger303]

Almost pin head size I could never read them. Are they all readable ?
I might want to build the Foxbat one day just because of the James Bond link.