Scalemates 5th Generation, UAV, and Stealth Groupbuild 2021

Konrad -
Watching this one!

Daniel
In as well 👍

Maciej Bellos
Following too!

Cuajete
Me 4!

Agustin Prellezo
Taking a seat!

Sergej I
Watching 🙂 👍

Michael Phillips
Count me in too!

Slavo Hazucha
Joining the spectator crowd - any chance for the Minecraft-camo?😉

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thanks everyone and welcome aboard. 🙂
It will take some time before I start this project, so please some patience with me.
With so many people watching I might be developing stage fright. 😳 😄

Minecraft-camo? Do you mean the camo shown on the box art and album teaser/project cover, Slavo?

Slavo Hazucha
Yep, that digital pattern - are you going for that?

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Yes, most likely.
The other pattern I have in mind is the green-brown-yellow pattern the Su-35 used. But I'll probably do that one on the Flanker I have in my stash.

Antoine Meylan
Je suis aussi. C'est un modèle qui me plait depuis longtemps (en attente du 1/48)

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Off to a not so great start, but some progress nevertheless.

Did some cleaning and sanding as well as some PE work, which did not work out that well. I glued the triangular parts in the cockpit to the wrong place.
As they are glued with superglue I am not sure if I can seperate them without damaging the PE parts as well as the firewall, so maybe I will leave them there.
Decided to go with two R-73 and two Kh-31 missiles, dropped nozzles, an open canopy and dropped LEVCON.

Please feel free to correct me if I mixed up some designations.
Although I love aircraft I am not that knowledgeable about them.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
The screwed up PE parts in the cockpit bothered me so much that I could not sleep. So I went and fixed it last night.
Will upload more pictures when I made some visible progress.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
I was able to get some stuff done on this jet after building some 1:1 furniture model kits this weekend. 🙂
Primed almost everything and did some putty and sanding.

More sanding and cleanups are necessary, especially on the underside of the wings. But it is slowly taking shape.
I also tried some heat discoloration on the nozzles one often sees on Flankers.
Not sure if the result is realistic but it still looks nice.

I believe that the PE parts need some special treatment as the color quickly chips off. Should I use some chemicals or some special primer next time?

Maciej Bellos
Everything looks good. I see this edition of the Zvezda kit tries to cure the problematic intakes of the 2012 or so edition. Looking forward for the pixels!

Cuajete
Looking good so far 👍

Konrad -
Very nice indeed👍!

Slavo Hazucha
Looks very cool all-black 👍

Interesting Zvezda provided purely speculative looking "zigzagged" engine nozzles - and according to videos they seem to have repeated that in 48-scale too 🙂

Robin (WhiteGlint)
So, some more progress from last sunday.
I finished pre-shading as well as the first color of the camo scheme. It is the first time I am using acrylic colors from mig and I don't own thinner from mig.
I used isopropylalcohol as I normally use with Tamiya, which works great with them.

Here not so much... painting the light blue was not a lot of fun as I had a hard time to find the right mixing ratio. I did not find it yet... It was either to thick or too thin.
As I still have two colors to go, so I have time to find the right ratio or use another thinner...
I am not sure if I sprayed enought of the light blue, some repainting is likely or I will take some artistic freedom with the camo scheme and give it some more of the dark blue.

Considered buying pre-cut masking tape but decided against it. It remains to be seen if that was the right decision.

The PE HUD broke off while I masked the cockpit for priming and pre-shading. I repainted it and will attach it again before glueing the canopy. It is somewhat out of shape but it can still be fixed. I guess I should leave parts like those to the final steps of the assembly.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Second color done. I need to repaint some areas with the light blue as I did not cover enough area with it.
Additionally, the masking was not that great and I am missing a lot of sharp edges.
Masking all that really takes a lot of time, even with the "stencil" I used.

The colors are brighter than I imagined at first, but I like them.😎
I wonder how it will look after some wash and oil paint.

Time to get back to the bench.😉

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Decals done. Lots of decals.
I am not very fond of this step of model building as I often fear screwing up those delicate markings.
The gloss coat did not work that well this time, the surface is not very smooth. I guess the varnish/thinner ratio was not ideal.
Silvering is another fear/problem, but enough of Mark Fit seems to solve that. 😄

Next are a few more coats of gloss varnish followed by some panel line wash. And then weathering.

What bothers me is the nose gear door. Looks like the parts used for the left and right door are the same... (pic31)
Maybe I need to grab the closed door, cut and paint it...

Maciej Bellos
Looks good! A bit on the blue side, but good nonetheless. Looking forward to the finished model.

Cuajete
Attractive painting 👍.

Alexander Grivonev
Wow, that's a vibrant blue 👍

John Thomas
Very cool

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thanks Maciej, Cuajete, John and Alexander.

It's done. 🙂
Found some time to finish this project today as I was sentenced to two weeks quarantine. Luckily I am not sick (yet), so I might as well make the most of it. 😄

Learned some stuff. Though I still seem to struggle with my gloss coats.

Maybe I need other thinners as I was not able to get a smooth surface. Or maybe another varnish.
Looks like I still don't have the hang of working with Vallejo products correctly...

I regret using the oil wash, I should have kept the jet clean as it revealed some nasty mistakes I made with the deals and the varnish. It looks to me as if the oil wash crept under some of the decals. And it did not really run through the panel lines to highlight them... 🙁

It is a nice kit but with some errors (landing gear doors incorrect, the same part twice for the left and the right nose gear).
The painting guide seems wrong as the engines don't get that much metal look one sees on Flankers often. I realized that rather late after looking at some more pictures of the jet.
I didn't want to risk more screw ups so I kept to the guide and left it as it is.

All in all I am still happy with the result. I believe it is the first time I built an aircraft with an open canopy and a number of PE parts. While my work is not perfect it still looks good and really adds to the kit.

These group builds are fun, I hope I find the time to join some more this year. 👍

Maciej Bellos
I hope you are OK! Nice end result!

Cuajete
Very nice. Well done.
Congrats!

James C
That's a great result mate. Looks like it's a big beast, and very futuristic looking as well. 👍

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thank you very much, everyone. 😄

@James: It is about the same size as a Flanker. I uploaded two more pictures with other aircraft in the same scale and with some Tamiya glue for comparison.

Konrad -
Very nice 👍! Awesome paint job👍!

Saeed Ezadi
Great paintjob!

Slavo Hazucha
Felon through the finish line 👍 - great job on the Minecraft camo - super-crisp masking!

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thanks Konrad, Saeed and Slavo, your comments are much appreciated.
And thanks to everyone else who left a like. 🙂

I'll try some digital camo again in the future, but next time I have to make it easier and more accurate. I had to cut a lot of masking tape.

David Taylor
Beautifully done,modern Russian jets are so easy on the eye.