Scalemates Mig-21 Group Build 2021

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Almost done with the MiG-21.
Sorry, I forgot to take more pictures during the building process.
Paint is on, as well as the first layer of gloss coat and decals.

I am not that happy with the colours of the two-tone camouflage. It's rather dark and the contrast is not as high as I first intended to.
But I won't repaint it due to lack of free time. I'd rather finish this project take a short break and start the next one.

The kit itself is great, lot's of parts and details but I had some real problems glueing both halves of the fuselage.
Maybe the alignment of the engine was not correct as I had to use a lot of putty to fill the large gaps on the underside of the fuselage, which is strange for a kit with such great fit. On the topside I used the spine of the aircraft to hide the gaps.

Jan Peters
The mig looks great from here, just a bit dark. You did the same ac I planned to build from the kit. Will take care when aligning the engine, thanks for the early warning

James C
You may be right about the camo colours being a little dark, but otherwise it's a great looking build 👍

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thanks Roland, Jan and James.
I'll upload more pictures when I made some progress. Hopefully I get my mojo back fast for all those other decals. There are a lot of them.
Hopefully there is some nice weather once it is finished. It's been rainy and dark the last few days, not the best conditions for a photo op. Pictures under natural light are the most beautiful.

Even though aircraft of my favourite subject, I really hate adding hundreds of little decals for warning signs, etc. but in the end it is really worth the effort, as I could see on my Su-57.

Or I could stick to WW2 aircraft as they don't have that many decals. 😉

Looking forward to your MiG-21, Jan! 👍

Sergej I
Nice little MiG! Great job with the scale WhiteGlint 👍, I like the shaded bottom especially.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thanks Sergej! 🙂
I planned to do the shading on the top, too but that didn't work out as intended.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Bird is finished.
Something went wrong during the last step of applying Tamiya Flat Clear.
While applying the clear coat I noticed that the model became extremely, let's say, dusty.

Not that happy with the result. Sure, it won't be as glossy as before with flat clear but that result is too dusty.
Didn't had that problem with my Seafang where I used Flat Clear as well to seal everything in.

Not sure if I did mess up the clean-up of my airbrush and still had some stuff inside it. 🙁
I clean it in an ultra sonic cleaner after every building session, especially when I used polyurethane varnish. On this project I only used the Tamiya Clear and Flat Clear acrylics.

Still, it was a fun project. 👍

Jan Peters
Great job on the Mig, I hope minecwill turn out as good as yours

Daniel
Evil looking mig, looks great 👍

Murad ÖZER
Lovely Duo WhiteGlint. 😎

as for the dusting of tamiya flat it's usually too high, either the amount of flat clear vs the thinner or the air pressure! first indication will always happen around T or L shaped (right angle) places like the wing roots and/or intakes where air gets turbulent and the overspray bounces off the model and mixes back into the spray from the airbrush resulting in it drying midair and landing as a particle instead of wet. pressure control, trigger control and direction of spray would be important in those places. simply treat the model as a real airplane and go from front to back if you can, otherwise always at an angle where the overspray can be free to fly off instead of being masked by the fuselage. a-10 and f-4 type low winged designs are especially notorious when it comes to this behavior.

if you have some SYNTHETIC thinner laying around, try applying a layer neat and see if that dissolves the dusty particles back into the paint. tho do not handle the model for a while afterwards if you go that route but since on it's gears it should be relatively easy.

this approach is my default goto if and when i am down to the abomination that is tamiya flat clear, usually prefer vallejo flat clear (non PU one) barely thinned with it's own ab thinner and shot almost dripping wet.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thanks Roland, Jan, Daniel and Murad! 🙂
And naturally thanks to everyone leaving a like. It's hard to keep track of all your names.

The second MiG is a Zvezda kit I did two or three years ago. I wanted to place them together as comparison, to, hopefully, see some progress in my model building skills. Though, it is not a fair comparison as they are two different kits. In comparison to the Eduard kit the Zvezda MiG is lacking a lot of detail.

@Murad: I never really considered aerodynamics while airbrushing. I'll try to keep that in mind on future projects. An 1:48 F-4 is on my list as well so I need to remember that.
With synthetic thinner, do you mean lacquer thinner?
Or could I try some polishing?
I think I will give the Vallejo acrylics varnish a try in the future, too. The application of a wet coat sounds easier than several thin layers.
Still, some further experimentation with Tamiya is necessary. It's only the second time I used it and there are still some bottles to be emptied.
Thank you for your helpful advice! 👍

Murad ÖZER
no i meant synthetic, as in the stuff you thin household oil paints (for painting walls, not artistic oils).

as paint bases go lacquer>synthetic>ipa, water, everything else.
meaning lacquer (aka cellulosic) will eat everything in it's path.
synthetics won't do anything to lacquers but will eat everything else yet not as hot/agressive as a lacquer when it comes to chemical properties, hence the reason i advised synthetic thinners.

now if you want you can use mr levelling thinner or similar SCALE MODELLING SUPPLY but i did not call it on purpose just to be on the safe side (for me 😄) because if something's got lost in translation or down to feasibility of purchase, a true lacquer / hardware store cellulose might cause paint cracking or worse marr the plastic itself visibly - it's impossible to know for sure without trying on a spare piece painted exactly the way you painted your model.

as for tamiya flat clear, when the planets align it really works well, but more often than not i find it unreliable. i can always add a retarder but that seems to negate the flat base. ultimately the climate i live in is hot and humid which imho is a big enough factor especially with the flat coats, even enamels are problematic here.