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Djordje Colovic
53 articles

1/48 Zvezda Mi 24V/VP

March 30, 2021 · in Aviation · · 24 · 3.2K

After horrific Sword's F3h I laid down my hands, like a tiger, onto the 's Mi24. I really don't want to say anything about this helicopter escept, it is LEGEND. Can You say, for example, Afghanistan without remembering this helicopter? Some few clicks from my house there is military airports where are Senke stationed (Shadows in English) with their modifications of Mi24s – Mi35, so I can see them almost every day above my head, real brute chariots. That is In fact, this was my 2nd ever built model while I was studying some almost 10 years ago. I painted that model by handbrush. In fact, this one in 48th scale is resized and retooled model from 72nd scale.

Model comes in impressive giant box. Parts are without any sing of flash! Clear parts are fabolous, decals printed from Begemot. Impressive model. But with dissantvantages. Those problems are not real problems for some a little bit more experinced modelers with some modelling tools. Whole helicopter has so shallow panels that I think the hair is thicker. And, there is not a single one rivet present. I hate rivet counting, but on the helicopter of this siye panels and rivets are must. So, if You want to achieve realistic details You have to scribe panels and rivets. it took me some 3 hours to that clean and neat. Another problem is plane cockpit. Whole instrument panel, side walss. a re without any raised detail. You glue parts, paint them, gloss varnish them and put decals on, seats are without harnesses… So for that reason I decided to place pilots in the cockpit, to give it some realism. Just because of the pilots my next plan was to make the plane ready for flight, with all the hatces closed. I did all the interior and engines inside, but I closed them inside.

The fit is apsolutely fenomenal! I didn't use a drop of putty. Just carefull sanding, glueing with liquid cement and You are ready to go! I'm not satisfied with canopy which is made from some 5 parts.You have to be enormous careful.

I lost DUAS probe after breaking it. I scratchuld another from needle and some pe parts which I measured, cut and glued onto their place. And, I'm more satisfied with that probe than with that OOB.

I decided to arm it to the teeth. I made two UPK-23-250, and four 9K114 Shturm tubes, along with two B-8V20. For the nose turret I made Yakushev-Borzov Yak-B Gatling gun.

For the first time I used Zvezda acrylics. I get them from frined of mine who told me that thjose colors are the most representative for this model. And, for ral, these colors prove to be right ones. I thin them with Vallejo thinner and they behaved excellent. So good that I could frehand paint the camo. Some shading and postshading was done with ak real colors. Whole model is painted with Harder & Steenback Evolution and Infinity airbrushes. Metal parts are painted with Alclad II.

After gloss varnish I put decals made by Begemot, and they are superb!

I did all the wires and cables for rotors out of scratch. Also, wires are made from scartch. All the glassess for radars are made with Micro Kristal Klear. Also I scratch position lights and glass for 8mm camera on the left wing.

All the weathering was done with Ak panleliners and washes. Other weathering was done with allmight Abteilung 502 oils.

So, this is finished Zvezda's Mi 24… I'm awaiting for Your comments, cheers!

Reader reactions:
13  Awesome

10 additional images. Click to enlarge.


24 responses

  1. That is one beautiful brute! Well done.

  2. I really like this bird, and your rendition is fantastic. Bravo!

  3. VERY VERY nice work! Love the detail painting you applied to this kit. Congratulations! I always loved the Hind- thought about the Monogram one, but shied away and focused more on jets instead. Still, I want to do an Apache and a Hind one day.

    • I started modelling with helicopters, then I switched to panzers, then to planes, and, here I'm with Hind 🙂 But, real joy comes when you find yourself standing by this Beast 🙂

  4. An impressive helicopter presented by an impressive build, Djordje.
    A well chosen scheme.

  5. Djordje,

    Nicely done. I wish I could brush paint the way you can. I still have the big Trumpeter Hind waiting to be built, so your project may re-fire my desire to actually build it. Superb build!

    • Thank You Scott. I brushpainted 72nd model, this one I painted with airbrush. Sometimes I think about airbrushin as about cheating> My real joy was while I was learning modelling and paintin models with brush 🙂

  6. Not much into choppers but this is some fine work!

  7. Very nice! Love that color scheme.

  8. The neat thing about this 1/48 Zvezda Mi 24V/VP is that the model has the asymmetrical twist built into the cockpit tub. If you look at the cockpit from the front of the Mi-24 directly at the wind screens and draw a line vertically between the two engine intakes . . . you will see that twist. Which is accurate for the real copter. I believe that the tail boom is off set too. Most likely to off set the torque in the main rotor and tail rotor.

    Some strong work Djordje.

    Two thumbs up.

    • The model itself is fantastic with great fit and attention to details. Only drawbac Is lack of rivers and very shallow panels, but nothing serious to do by yourself.

  9. Very impressive build.

  10. Looks great. The mighty Hind!

  11. The only thing I don't like about helicopters is that they are so noisy, luckily this one is silent, so I can enjoy looking at it, you've done a great job on this, definitely liked.

  12. You've done excellent work on this kit of this iconic helicopter, Djordje!
    Congratulations!

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