Area 88 1/144: Blue Cheese 7 (MiG-21 + Learjet)

[strobez]

For my latest 1/144 Area 88 build, I decided to dive into a flashback scene from the manga. Before he joined Area 88, Greg Gates, known by his call sign "Blue Cheese 7" ran a secret air ferry service for people seeking to escape from the Soviet Bloc. But when he helps the world-renowned Violinist Natasha Lavrovsky, the pride of the Soviet Union, to defect to England he runs afoul of the East German Air Force MiG-21s and has to do some fancy flying in his Learjet 35 to escape.

It took me a while to settle on the best starting kit for the MiG-21's given the large underbelly machine guns visible in the manga.  I ended up choosing a reboxing of the Trumpeter Chinese F-7II.  So let's kick this thread off with a pic of the least crushed box from my Ali-Express shipment...



The sprues look pretty good.



Did a bit of a dry fit, but the engine lights will need to go in almost first thing



Just a bit of paint on the inside, mainly for tone as it will be mostly covered later.



All buttoned up and most of the bits glued on... lights work!



All the rest of the bits glued on to close up the wheel wells... Repeat x2...



Some nose adjustments needed... those missiles look like they'll work...



Nose cone drilled out



Looks better... and the length can be adjusted more carefully.



Take a seat, gentlemen...



Ready for take off! Well... almost.



Canopies attached and ready for masking.



Now let's turn our attention to the Learjet portion of the build.  Certainly comes in a nice big box.



Almost all the parts are on one sprue.  You can decided to open the windows or not... guess which one I'll choose?



test fit looks good, but the cockpit needs some scratch work.



Drilling out the holes for the windows is a bit nerve-wracking.



Yeah. the light will work.

[PR19_Kit]

I see you have a monster bottle of Tamiya cement to go with the monster paint pot Greg? 

It must be huge as I've never seen a 1/144 Learjet, so I reckon it's a 1/48 one and you're spoofing us with your 'Giant Modelling Tools' set. 

[strobez]

You should see my garage... stacked to the roof with oversized novelty modeling equipment. The clippers are a real hazard... always falling over. 

[PR19_Kit]

You should see my garage... stacked to the roof with oversized novelty modeling equipment. The clippers are a real hazard... always falling over. 

[Weaver]

Well since I'm eating a blue cheese sandwich at the moment, it seemed only reasonable to click on this thread...

Nice project!

Those missiles are drop-tanks by the way. They certainly make the early-pattern MiG look a lot sharper: a trick worth stealing in other scales, methinks...

[zenrat]

Thankfully the plastic looks more like a MiG 21 than the box art.

I am fresh out of blue cheese but I am still enjoying this build.

[strobez]

So time for an update on this project as well.  I decided to focus on the MiG-21s first and get them done.

So after painting everything with flat aluminium, I started masking off the different panel shades.  It wasn't too bad...



...until I remembered I had to mask THREE of these bandits.



The paint job was a bit subtle, but looks good enough for me...



So let's celebrate with... MORE masking!



Oh look, I missed a few spots... of course.



Now for the numbers.. C'mon... this should work...



All masked yet again and fingers crossed...



Damn... looks like I'm going to have to resort to decals...



While we wait for the decals to show up, let's finish off the weathering and get some work done on the base.



And there we go, decals applied and mounted on the base. This part is effectively done.



Now to move on to the Learjet 35.

[strobez]

As for the Learjet... a little progress as well...

I painted the interior with Tamiya Dark Iron to block the light, otherwise it'll shine right through the white plastic.



Dark paint alone was not enough, so I raided then kitchen cupboard an added some "Larva" thin aluminium foil from the packed lunch supplies.



Greg is ready to get into the pilot's chair... that'd be Greg Gates... the Blue Cheese himself.



After some mashing, I got it all buttoned up. I thought I'd cleared the aluminium foil from the edges, but it still created some gaps.



putty... sand... repeat...

[TheChronicOne]

Nice! So cool to see bright light streaming from those windows. And, the irony of the company name "Gates" isn't lost, I'm sure.

[strobez]

So a final update on this project...

I got the underside all buttoned up. Closing all the wheel well doors was a bit tricky since it's not really designed to be shown "wheels up".



Everything looks like it lines up... so that's good.  Now to add on all the extra bits.



Engines assembled... and the lights still work.  Good to go!



Windows masked... more or less. Those little side windows were a real pain to get to sit properly in the self-made holes.  The tolerance levels were quite low, so it was a lot of careful shoving.



After sanding and painting and sanding... and painting... it's white!

[strobez]

And... as always... the glamour shots!~

















I keep that empty pot of white Tamiya paint right next to the photo booth just for you guys.

[TheChronicOne]

Fantastic!!!!  I could feel the tension inside the cockpit of the Learjet. 

[Old Wombat]

Again with the giant paint pots!


I agree with Brad. Awesome build!

[loupgarou]

Very good as usual! 
I thought the Lear Jet was bigger. It seems smaller than the MIGs, not very big themselves.

[zenrat]

Yeah baby!