Revell 1/72 MiG-31 Foxhound
Just finished this one. It is an old Revell kit, and pretty toy-like out of the box. I decided to try to dress it up a bit with a Begemon stencils decal set.
There was no cockpit for the back seater, and although I knew it wouldn't be very visible when finished, I scratchbuilt the rear cockpit, added to the dash on the front seater, and added True Details ejection seats. Underneath I drilled out the landing lights, and the gear doors required lots of sanding, as they were pretty "square" and didn't conform to the fuselage when built wheels-up. Quite a bit of filler and sanding required to try to make the join lines disappear.
The ordnance looked like toys. The fins were so think I considered deleting them and replacing from plastruct, but decided I didn't want to do that much work. On the Amos missiles, I cut the rear fins to look more accurate, drilled out the ends and created more accurate nozzles, and added the ribbing. On the Acrids I had to reach into the spare parts bin to find pieces to create the side-mounted nozzles, and cap off the tail cone. You can see from the before pic that the wing tanks looked like sausages! Had to fill in the existing panel lines, rescribe new ones and re-draw with pencil some caps and access panels. I've never spent so much effort on ordnance, and it would have been much easier to look for aftermarket replacements, but it was enjoyable trying to spruce up these ugly ducklings!
Hand painted the entire aircraft except for metalizer on the exhaust nozzles. Used a grey acrylic panel wash, and weathered with some pastel powders.
I lost count after 30+ hours of decalling - 32 decals on each Amos missile alone! Although none of the reference pics showed such elaborate stenciling, I'm ok with the end result, as it kind of helped "hide" the toy underneath! The decals went on great and seemed like they wouldn't silver, but after overspray with dull coat the silvering showed up. I had seen Tom's advice on getting rid of this, but due to already being oversprayed, and just the fact that there were so many of them, I decided to leave well-enough alone and live with it. Still looks good from a distance!
My only regret is not noticing until too late that the Amos missiles should have been flush/recess mounted under the fuselage rather than hung on pylons. Sometimes in my eagerness to get started and keep momentum going on a build I miss a few details from references. Oh well!
1/72 I assume? Nicely presented. I'm surprised at the care you've put into such an old kit, but these MIGs have a good looking profile and you've done well to bring it up to this standard.
Yes - 1/72 - forgot that in my header - just changed it. And thanks!
PS just noticed the 1/72 tag, so have answered my own question!
In relation to your comment about old kits, probably 3/4 of my stash are old kits. I like to buy cheap stuff and put a bit of elbow grease into them to make them look better than the age of the kit typically allows. I find it somewhat of a challenge, and forces me to up my skills a little bit. Plus - saves me lots of money! I generally don't buy high-priced kits nor much aftermarket stuff - try to use sprue, plastic, wire, etc. rather than PE or resin parts. I do use ordnance sets often, and always add pilots.
I agree 🙂 Somewhat a gerat satisfaction to see an old kit's transformation something much better than the original. Ok, I know that Francois Verlinden once said that "not enough time for the second best kit" but there are different opinions too 😀
Greg, nicely done, I can't believe you got that nice of a finish by hand painting it. Sounds like a tough build, but your work paid off. Nicely done.
Excellent build, Greg (and photographed nicely as well)...I'll bet applying all those decals kept you "off the streets" for a while. So...I'll bet this kit in 72nd scale isn't really all that 'small' is it?
Not compared to the Magister or two "Soccer War" corsairs I'm working on now!
Nice work on this oldie! I remember this kit from my childhood 🙂 long time ago a galaxy far... 🙂
Thanks Gabor - I've been thinking about the Walrus I have in my stash, and wanting to mimic (at least partially) your effort - but haven't gotten up the courage yet!
My first thought: Nice cold war picture ! Guess you exellent modelling and the great decal job did that trick, along with good photos.
Well done !
There is a MiG-31 kit from Revell in 1/72 in my stash too, thats a Zvezda (?) mold. Tempting !
Great work Greg, all those decals would of sent me nuts.
Good looking Mig sir.
🙂 ... Greetings ... 🙂 :
Nice build and detailing.
Mig25 im Like !
o man 31
I'll get to the companion Mig-25 at some point - same old Revell kit is in my stash!
Greg, I like old kits too, even built up old kits to refurbish. Beautiful work on this model, nice and clean.
It's great !
Wow! You nailed it Greg! And in that scale no less. Seriously nice modeling in a small package! I enjoyed seeing that.
Thanks!
Great job!