1/48 Slovak Mig 29...highlights and augments...

Mini update on the week's work. Adding in all the little paint augments before I Future this sucker up for decals. First off, the overall bench, including a preview of the base I'm beginning to work on.

I'm taking some creative license with the nose cone - it calls for a darker plain grey but I went with a dark sea grey instead to add a bit of color. I also extended the nose cone color down the sides of the plane. I think it will work well with the digital camo.

The nose from underneath. Also you can see where I touched up the wheel wells with german green grey as well as the intake covers.

Tail fins with matching dark sea blue of the nose.

Now here is a fitting test with the engines. I mixed Burnt umber and silver to get a shiny look. I think it needs to be darkened some more before it's finished, perhaps with a wash at the end? What do you think?

New Comics...3.28.12...

Small but good stack this week...

COTW - Hellraiser 12...everything it should and could be...Excellent book!

Star Trek #7...cool cover...an original story

Cobra 11...Cobra Commander makes his move...

1/48 Slovak Mig 29...Final coat...

Success, my lord! Base coat after base coat and some mishaps with the right ratio of paint to water/windex, I finally settled on a good mix for the final overall coat: 16 drops Light Sea Grey...10 drops of german (green) grey....and 9 drops of H2O. The light sea grey was a little too blue (as seen in the pictures working up to this point) - I added the german grey to make it closer to actual regular grey while still retaining some of the color.

The bench...

Top view..can you see the panel lines?

Close-up Top detail...

Underneath view....red circle indicates newspaper I stuffed into the wheel wells to keep from getting overspray on the dark green well interior. I doubt it worked very well, but I should be able to touch up the edges once removed.

1/48 Slovak Mig 29...panel lines...

This is one of the parts I dread most, mainly because black is so hard to airbrush. It just gunks up the brush if you don't have the mixture just right. That being said, I do like how most of these augments turned out. I still cannot ab straight lines for anything though...

The current bench...S

1/48 Slovak Mig 29...first and second base coats...

After struggling to get the mixture of windex/thinner and acrylic, got two coats down of the light sea grey.

1/48 Slovak Mig 29...prepped for paint...

Another day and a half of prepwork, filling and sanding and masking off the canopy..then in the first pic I sent ANOTHER gap I hadn't previously spotted. ARGH! Other than that, I'm ready to go.

Top view...

The desk...all weapons pylons trimmed and sanded off, wheel well panels and external fuel tank constructed. Almost there...

New Comics...3.21.12...

As Ice Cube used to say, Today was a Good Day...

COTW - Snake Eyes 11...

Almost COTW - Star Trek/Legion of SH 6...

I hate clowns...Hellraiser Masterpieces 10...

Monocyte 3...

RoboCop Road Trip 4...

Justice League 7...

Batman 7...

Batwoman 7...

The Minimalist Approach...Ricktatorship

Nothing like a season finale to get the creative juices flowing. Season Two of the Walking Dead ended with a bang...or should I say BLAZE?

First pic is in line with the season one WD poster I did last year - similar border, fonts and tagline placement...

The second is a bit more loose, no border and opposite positions for the titles/tag. Enjoy!

1/48 Slovak Mig 29...she has wings!

Not much report other than I did get the wings glued on last night. This looks good from the top - a striking profile.

Then you turn it over and there are gaps everywhere (red circles). I aim to either ignore them and concentrate on the details or cover them with paint. Yellow circles show holes prepped for fuel tank and weapons struts. This thing is gonna be LOADED.

1/48 Slovak Mig 29...getting there...

After a lackluster week, I'm finally back to the Mig 29 build and making progress. The Academy kit is still giving me fits here and there as far as gaps/fitting/sanding is going BUT I decided to stop obsessing over every minute detail and just get on with it. Most likely, the little areas I'm worried about will either be covered with paint/decals or de-emphasized by larger surrounding parts. We'll see.

Full side shot....tail fins and back stabilizers attached. Each tail fin was 3 pieces that had to be fitted together.

Close up detail shot of the back quarter. Here you can see the braking panel struts. They were a beast to trim off the sprue tree (one end snapped off!) and then attach to the tail panel. I can only hope they look ok once the braking panels are attached later. Still not bad overall...

The full workbench. You can see the wings and engines here. Each was multiple pieces and had to be constructed in several stages. What Academy lacks in perfect fitting, they seem to make up for in detail and parts.

1/48 Slovak Mig 29...sanding, etc...

Slow progress weekend on the Mig. Frankly, the Academy kit is not my favorite at this point...lots of sanding, fitting, more sanding.

Wheel wells painted a grey green and enclosing pieces held in place with drafting tape so the glue could dry. Intake tubes (left) need to fit in horiz. slot so lots of sanding had to be done to get it to fit on a test run.

Cockpit glass in place. Again lots of sanding done to back section of main glass. It still doesn't fit perfect but all in all better than it was. Details show through nice.

Opposite side angle shot of wheel wells with tape removed. We shall see.

Rear brake flaps drying. I think I'm going to set them in the open position. Also intake tubes with opening flaps in place.

Finally, the current state of the workbench...

New Comics...3.7.12...

COTW..Swamp Thing 7...

Hell Masterpieces 9...creepy...

GI JOE 11...this isn't the cover I got...I like the one I got which features a Raptor chasing a Cobra drone, not this John Cena wannabe....anyway...

1/48 Slovak Mig 29...fittings...

Construction of nose section fuselage and fitting to main body done. Good fit on top but a nasty gap shows up on the bottom section.

Argghhh...time to get out the silly putty...