HobbyBoss 1/72 MiG-3 - abandoned!

[venom1]

OK guys, well I guess there is no time like the present to begin my first WIP! ;D

I actually started this more than 12 months ago with the intention of doing an abandoned bit of gear, but that was before I came here, so it all got a bit hard, and I went back to building un-abandoned wingy things!

Anyway, here I am, so lets get on with it shall we! I wanted to have a crack at an old, abandoned Russian aircraft, all chipped, flaked paint and weathered to billy-o. The kit I chose for my first foray into the unknown is the HobbyBoss MiG-3 in braille scale. I must admit I am a bit of a fan of these easy kits. They have virtually no cockpit detail (due to the solid, single piece fuselage) but they look the part once built, and they make a great canvas to practice painting, as they go together massively fast, allowing you to get to the fun part with a minimum of fuss!

This is the kit:



Assembly was very straight forward, and extremely quick, getting it to this stage in one evening at the desk!





As you can make out, a little filler was needed on the underside, but nothing too tragic, easy fix really. The next stage was to paint what would be under the paint, as it were.

The MiG-3 was of wood and metal construction, with fabric covered control surfaces. Therefore I went ahead and painted and masked as appropriate. The metal was done using Alclad II (aluminum I think), with the base colour for the wood being (I think) Radome Tan or something similar. The control surfaces were also masked and painted, cant remember the colour but it was a bit of a guesstimate anyway! With the masking removed, this is where she stood (for at least 12 months! ) as of early this evening:







After a lengthy search on the internet (with little success bar one or two articles) and a look through a couple of mags in my collection, I decided to try and have a vague stab at replicating wood grain. Quick bit of masking to protect the non-woody type bits, and then I got stuck in with some Burnt Sienna and started streaking. This was the result before the removal of the masking....





And then finally, the masking was removed to reveal all her woodyness!!









While far from perfect, I thought it was not a bad crack, considering it was the first time ever that I have tried it. It will definitely do for this little project anyway!

Will leave it for a day or so to cure a bit, then I need to deaden down the aluminium, probably with some sort of light grey, just to make it look old and corroded. I then need to weather the control surfaces and try and make to wood finish look old. Not quite sure how to do that yet. Oh well, will cross that bridge when I get there I guess!

Once all this is done I can start thinking about fun with hairspray. Now that will be the fun part! Stay tuned kiddy-winkies!...... ;D

Cheers,

Sam

[bbd468]

WOW SAM!!!! Thats a Sweet little MiG! Love what your doin' with it...very cool!

Gary

[bullardino]

Nice

So you're going to overspray the camo and then chip it with HS technique?

[TRM]

Very nice Sir!!! Great "little" project you have going on!! Makeing some nice progress too!!!

[venom1]

Thanx guys! ;D

Luigi - Yes, the aim is to try and use the HS technique. I still need to weather what you see at the mo to get it looking a bit older before I start that stage.

I will then do it in stages, something along the lines of, HS + underside blue then chip and weather, HS + topside green then chip and weather, HS + markings then chip and weather, you get the idea!

I put this off for such a long time as I was under the impression that I needed to do ALL the painting before I started the chipping. I never had the time up my sleeve to do HS, masking and painting (including the markings) and then get back to chipping before it got too difficult to take off. Until I read Steve's article here on MSC on his awesome Fw-190, it never occurred to me I could do it in stages! Stoopid brain......

Anyway, thanks for looking in, I will try and update as often as I can!

Cheers,

Sam

[Deleted]

Hiya Sam, apologies for my absence, family stuff !

Great start buddy you're right looks to be a great kit to start on
Keeping in mind you asked for a bit of advice and it's entirely up to you as she's your build .... On the FW I gave the metal areas a bit of modulation by first dabbing Maskol on then let it dry. Then a thin, patchy coat of grey/ steel mix.
Once this is dry rub the Maskol away with your finger. This will give it a nice non- uniform finish ready for the HS and top coats.

[Deleted]

superb stuff looks great!

[armorguy]

The wood looks fine !

[venom1]

Thanx for the kind words guys, your feedback is important to me

Steve - No problem mate, family always comes first! And by all means, advise away, I need all I can get! I had actually decided to tone down the metallic stuff with a dusting of light grey/steel, but didn't think about the maskol thing. That is a great idea, I will definitely give that a crack. Thanks again for the advice and keep it comin'!

Hopefully an update soon!.....

Cheers,

Sam

[406 Silverado]

wow, some very nice painting so far.

[venom1]

Thanks Boss, glad you like it! ;D

I have masked it off in prep for dulling down the metal, with some dabs of Maskol here and there as per Steve's suggestion. Hoping to get some steel/grey mix on by the weekend, so will post again when I get to that stage!

Cheers,

Sam

[Deleted]

Oh yes...forgot to say....
Trick with the Maskol it make sure that the paint is touch dry and not fully set when you rub the Maskol off. This lets the edges feather in rather than lift up..... Good luck and Karma to you Buddy

[venom1]

Hi Steve,

Thanks mate, advice taken (truth be told, I did what you said before I read your last post, but only because I'm an impatient b@$tard, and I whipped off the Maskol as soon as I could anyway!!). I managed to get a little time in the paint booth over the weekend, so for you and anyone else following along, another update!

First up, the little MiG was masked up in preparation for further paintwork...



The colours that I chose were a 50/50 mix of Model Master Aluminium and FS36314 Flint Grey (no scientific reasoning for the grey, just whatever was close at hand!)



This is the result of a couple of dust coats of the 50/50 mix. The Maskol is quite prominent...



And finally, the end result, unmasked in all her glory! Not bad for a first crack!!





So there ya go, another successful stage. I now need to do some weathering on the fabric control surfaces and trying some sort of fading on the timber. Then it's on to the part I am really looking forward to. The top coat!! ;D

Tune in next time true believers! (Say in best Stan Lee voice....)

Cheers,

Sam

[bullardino]

Interesting approach. I'll follow truly interested

[Deleted]

Hi Sam,
Looks real good from here buddy . Glad it worked out for ya . To me it gives the metal areas a deeper finish.
Keep up the good work

[venom1]

Thanks for the encouragement Steve, will do! I am pretty happy with how this is progressing at the moment, so hopefully I can keep it up!

The model room is undergoing a bit of a cleanup and a rearrange at the moment, so I don't have any room to model until everything is cleaned up. Hoping to have it all sorted and back at the bench by the end of the weekend.

Will get stuck back into the MiG then!

Cheers,

Sam

[TRM]

Looking fantastic Sam!!! "Fruits of your labor" are showing through!!

[madairbrush]

I am not a big fan of airplanes, but the effects on this one look awesome.

[bbd468]

Very cool indeed Sam...looks sweet!!!

Gary

[venom1]

Thanks very much guys!

Still in the throes of cleaning up the model room. Will hopefully have it all back together today, so fingers crossed, can get back into some proper modelling during the week. Watch this space.....

Cheers,

Sam

[venom1]

Hi Dicky - Sorry for the late reply! Thanks mate, but now you've tuned in, nothing is happening! Truth be told, I have been pretty busy with family stuff, and I have been getting some paint on my two Reapers for my group build at the club. Rest assured, I am very keen to get back into this. She is sitting on my bench beckoning me to get on with it!..... ;D

Mike - thanks for the kind words friend! Yes, as far as I am aware they are pretty much the same thing. Any sort of liquid latex will do I imagine. Hope I have inspired you to have a crack, that's exactly what these guys here have done to me!!

Hopefully I will have something more to report in the near future!

Cheers,

Sam

[Deleted]

Not commented here for a while Sam ,but I like the way this little lady is going at the moment!

[venom1]

Thanks very much CB!

Obviously she has stalled a bit at the mo, but rest assured after I take care of a couple more "urgent" projects on the model desk, I will be back into this one. I am really keen to carry on with this!!

Cheers,

Sam

[`Boots`]

That is looking very nice indeed Sam.................keep the motors turning buddy she`s gonna be a little cracker ;D

[venom1]

Thanks Boots, definitely have not forgotten about this little lady! I have a couple of other things which take priority at the moment on the desk. I need to get my two Reapers painted and ready for the next club meet after Christmas on the 29th of this month. We will be starting the decalling phase and I need to have all the painting done!

I also have a heap of resin that I need to use up before it goes off, so I am flat out making moulds of things I need/want to cast so I can give my resin casting skills a workout before the used by date expires! I am taking a bunch of photos as I go with this and plan on posting on this site soon to show you guys how fun and easy resin casting can be! Makes life easy from a scratch building perspective too, make one and cast the rest rather than try and make a whole bunch the same!

Anyway, stay tuned, I plan on starting a new thread soon so keep an eye out! Once I get the resin stuff out of the way, I will be getting stuck back into this little lady. I am dead keen to keep going on this one, but resin expiry dates wait for no one!!! ;D

Cheers,

Sam

[modelfreak72]

Wow!!!.............. Yep that's all I got! ;D

[venom1]

Howdy folks!

Well, I have made some minor progress with the MiG at last! I have had a crack at doing some major paint chipping on the underside using the hairspray method. I couldn't really find any photos of heavily weathered MiG-3's on the usually reliable internets, so it is all pretty much guesswork.

I gave the underside a coat of hairspray, and following that I sprayed the underside with Tamiya XF-23 Light Blue, which seems to be a pretty good match for the Russian Underside Blue. I then set to work chipping it. I think I may have overdone it a bit, but keep in mind I will be depicting an aircraft long since abandoned, so the aim is to have it missing a fair bit of paint anyways.

Additionally, I wanted to show the difference between the metal structure, wooden wings and fabric covered control surfaces. In any case, this is all really an exercise in chipping and weathering techniques at the moment, so it's more just me trying to figure out how the flippin' 'eck to do stuff!!

Anyway, only a couple of pics to show atm, but it will give you an idea. Let me know what y'all think!

The blue belly....


Chips ahoy!!


So there we are, off to a start with the chipping. Hope to get some top colour on within the next week, so we will see how we go!

Cheers,

Sam

[wbill76]

Learned something new...had no idea they had wooden portions in the wings! Like the idea of an abandoned plane with the peeling paint...looking forward to more!

[Leon]

Sam,i wasn't a member when you started this.I'm really liking it so far.Nice work.

[deafpanzer]

WOW! Me either... never knew it was made of wood too. Looking great!!!