DDR MiG-21MF Build

Initial basecoat of the internal areas. 

Interior finished ready for assembly. Although the kit came with photoetch I think it looks too flat in 1/72. 3D Decals are better for this but I settled for the plastic parts with the decals. Various Ammo and AK enamel washes used. Details and highlights were picked out with Vallejo, AK 3rd Gen Acrylics and Citadel paints. 

Closer look at the finished cockpit tub. I was quite happy with how the decals settled down onto the console detail. 

The finished instrument panel. It's certainly not perfect (especially with the positioning of the lower right dials being off!) but from a distance it looks fine. I added the photoetch handle and gunsight detail as well. Doesn't show well here but the dials also received a gloss coat to make them pop from the flat panel. 

Main airframe complete. The fit was excellent and it very quickly fell together. I've left off the exhaust nozzles as it'll be easier to add them after painting than masking them up now. I've also cut the pitot arm off as I will be using the Master aftermarket.

Masked up everything else. For the canopy I used spares from the kit and copious amounts of masking fluid. I will paint the actual canopies I'll be using separately. I'll spot prime the seams to see if they need any additional work and then it'll be on to applying black MS1500 for the black-basing. 

Seams were cleaned up and some of the panel lines rescribed. I always love this stage of the build when the black MS1500 primer goes on for the black-basing. Makes it look like something Darth Vader would be flying around in. 

The marble coat of the lower Grey-Blue colour. I used a mixture of free-hand marbling along with some airbrush stencils. 

The lower blend coat applied. I thinned the MRP a little with Mr Levelling Thinner so I could really control the final blend layer. Black basing is supposed to be quite subtle as much of the contrast is emphasised with later weathering. In person you can just about see the differences in opacity and saturation but it doesn't show as well on camera. 

Marble coat of the lighter upper green. 

As before I thinned the MRP down with MLT for the blend coat. Again the camera struggles to pick up the differences in opacity/saturation but they're there to the eye. 

Second green applied for the camo pattern. No black-basing on this as it's quite a dark colour although I did try to use the lighter green base coat to give it a "patchy" look.

I chose to freehand the camo pattern with my Mr Hobby PS-771 which was a mistake as I got it wrong. I just decided to carry on with a rough approximation of the painting guide. Fortunately these DDR jets were camo'd in all kinds of unique ways by their ground crews so it's not the end of the world as opposed to standardised patterns like RAF Spitfires. Lesson learned so next time I'll just go through the effort of masking with rolled putty or cut out paper shapes. 

Added the pylons and underside cannon. Radome covers and various other parts were painted with Citadel and AK 3rd Gen Acrylics. Silver parts will be painted at the end of the build so they keep their shine. I like how the vivid green of the radar covers really makes the green camo colours pop.

Finally a coat of GX100 gloss varnish was applied to prepare the surface for the decals. Not looking forward to all those stencils. 

Finished underside with the gloss. The cannon came out a slightly different shade as I used a grey primer instead of black, but after some weathering it should tone down a little. 

I've applied the main insignia where the stencils don't overlap just to add some colour (and some motivation to do all those stencils).

I have to say I'm really not impressed by the Eduard decals. The DDR diamonds are quite faded (they look better in the photo than to the eye) and I'm thinking of painting the colours back in with thinned acrylics. They were also very resistant to all but the most strongest of decal softening solutions. Even then I had to carefully slice them along the panel lines to make sure they settled down properly. Cartograf decals they are not. 

I applied the lower wing stencils and then decided not to do any more of them. Simply too much effort and I don't think they look that good. I appreciate 1/72 is a small scale for stencils but I've seen them done far better than what Eduard have achieved here where they just look like small black caterpillars.

I regret applying them but I wasn't going to go through more effort to strip them. I doubt they'd show very well on the dark upper camo anyway. 

Applied Ammo Blue Grey panel line wash to the underside blue. I didn't want anything too stark and I found it was the perfect colour. Always a great moment after clean-up to see all that detail pop out as well as some early weathering effects.