AREA 88 1/144 - A MiG-27 by any other name...

[strobez]

So, this one got side tracked for a bit, but we're back in action now. I also forgot that I had this thread going, so I haven't posted updates in a while... so let's just breeze through and get all caught up, shall we?

Painted the cockpit... some kind of green. Kinda soviet-style if you squint... and are colour-blind.


Time to suit up....


Gentlemen, to your cockpits!


Canopies masked, but I'm not quite sure what to do about those gaps.


Ok, first off, some preshading... a bit heavy, but there'll be multiple layers of paint.


Underside painted grey. I probably should've gone for a lighter shade, but oh, well...


Grey underside masked and a coat of desert yellow applied to the top side.


Now for the camouflage masking. Hopefully a little better this time.


Brown camouflage painted.  Yep... looks better. It's darker than before so there's more contrast.


This wasn't really part of the original plan, but since I have lots of orange LEDs... why not?


Not a lot of space to work with, but I seem to have got it wired correctly. It's plugged in with a USB cable, and nothing blew up. I call that a win.


Homemade decals on and dry fit on the base.  I'm really not please with the tail markings, but I'm not sure if there's a better way to do it.  I tried masking and painting, but I just couldn't do it with something so small.

[Tophe]

Good result.
That may be a little too much realist for me, but this is the result of high skills so I clap my hands.

[TomZ]

Looks very nice!

TomZ

[Dizzyfugu]

Cool, a very dynamic formation display. 

[zenrat]

Coming along nicely.

[NARSES2]

That is neat 

[Old Wombat]

 

[Steel Penguin]

that is very good, very very good 

[strobez]

Thanks guys.  The build is now basically complete (I might still give it a coat of Future... just in case).  The final stages were a bit dis-heartening... mainly regarding the tail art.  At first I used transparent decals, but you really couldn't see the yellow cross at all.  That really bugged me, so I tried to cut some masking tape to use as a stencil to paint it on, but I just couldn't get the tape cut with enough precision.  So, plan "B" was to use a white-backed decal, printed with as close an approximation of the background colours as I could get, and then cut as close to the bone as I could manage.

The only problem? Well, more or less everything you can guess.  Printer colours were off, the white backing showed a bit around the edges, and basically I still couldn't cut it close enough.



So I was a bit disappointed.  I could see what I wanted to happen, but I just couldn't figure out how to get there.  I felt like a starving man standing in front of a restaurant window... just staring at the food just out of reach.  Then, after sleeping on the problem I decided to go back to the stencil idea - but with two major differences.  First off, for whatever reason, I got it in my head that since the cross is yellow... I should try to cut yellow crosses out of tape.  But then I realized a) black crosses are easier to see... thus easier to cut... and b) paper is easier to cut than tape.  DuH!

So I gave myself lots of tries...



Finally, after about the 6 or 7th attempt, I was able to cut out a stencil I could live with.  I had to change the knife blade 3 times because the very tippy tip kept getting broken.  I also had to reinforce the final paper stencil with very very tiny strips of tape (like 0.4mm).  Then I CAREFULLY applied it to the tail section, made my own sign of the cross... and started blowing paint.  It worked reasonably well, but since it was paper and not tape, it wouldn't sit snug against the plastic and thus created a bit of a soft edge to it.  I was too chicken to press it down any harder though.  The other thing is that I had 6 sides to do, but with each blast of paint, the paper stencil was getting wet and beginning to fall apart.  So I worked as fast as I could... which of course meant that there were a few spots where paint seeped under the wet paper.  It wasn't major but, again, not quite perfect.
. 


In the end though, it was the best I could do.  I might not have been able to secure a reservation at that restaurant, but I smashed the glass, grabbed a sandwich and rushed off down a back alley to eat it before anyone could stop me.



I also managed to snap one of the posts while carefully wiring up the final connections in the base for the afterburner LEDs... but after a bit of digging with one of those slightly broken blades, I was able to remove the glued-in bit and re-set the now slightly shorter post in place.



So there she is.  I included the obligatory shot of something recognizable to Kit so the scale is understandable.  I'm satisfied with the result. I don't think I could do any better, so I guess you can't really argue with that... just practice more and get better.



Now that this project is done and since my supplies from China have finally arrived, the big question is which 1/144 project do I re-start? the DC-10, the T-6 Texan... or the Zero/Cessna combo?

[Spey_Phantom]

you really have some great results with those old arii/crown Mig-23 
looking forward to your other Area 88 builds.

[PR19_Kit]

So there she is.  I included the obligatory shot of something recognizable to Kit so the scale is understandable. 

Hehehe, thanks for that. 

I'm fine with 1/144 scale airliners but the small size of fighters in that scale still boggles me.

[zenrat]

Fab.

[strobez]

Thanks guys! Building everything in triplicate had it's positives and negatives... I got lots of practice, but... l I had to do everything three times. 

The main thing was I got to correct the shape of the nose from the first build... that really bugged me. 

[strobez]

Sorry for reviving a dead thread, but I finally got around to taking some final picutres, so I thought I'd share.

















I wasn't happy with my first crack at the tail art, so I repainted the brown and then gave it another attempt - using the same stencil but adding a smidge more patience this time.  I still can't centre anything properly, but I think it was worth the extra effort.

If anyone's interested in reading the pertinent manga story behind the build, you can find the pages posted up at my blog - http://strobez.ca/wp/index.php/2018/10/03/area-88-1-144-the-bloody-screw/

[zenrat]