1/48 Trumpeter MiG 3 (early)

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Ye, it's coming along nicely. I was especially surprised with how well Lifecolor Acrylics worked with Tamiya thinner. At first I was really dreading having to work with these LifeColor paints again 'cause up 'till now that was a real drag, but it went extremely smooth with the Tamiya Thinner. Provided I can get it to work again I will look into buying some more LifeColor paints as they do have an interesting range very suitable for aviation.
 
Picking up the painting where I left it yesterday

It's time for a first round of shading on the lower surfaces. Problem: I havent quite mastered the dark art of pre-shading all the way, at least not the way I've seen other people do it. I tend to obliterate the darker areas which leads to a next to invisible effect. However, I like the effects that can be achieved with it. So I sort of have my own take on this process.

First laying out the basic color (as can be seen on yesterdays update) and then lay down the typical pre-shading grid (in this case with Gunze H328 blue) and then blend it all together by gently mist-coating a very thin mix of the basic color over the darkened area's. I admit, it takes an extra step or two compared to other methods, but I'm willing to walk the extra mile to achieve the desired results. On the other hand, trying to make it happen with a technique I haven't quite mastered yet will also make for loads and loads of extra work. All of which leads to the following pic's.

I want to look a little more in shading and fading the paint especially on the outer-wing parts, as these were made of some kind of (ply)wood material. I reasoned that these wooden areas would probably show a different kind of wear and tear compared to the metal parts of the MiG-3. Another reason to do this is because the area's made of wood have very little detail in terms of rivets, panel-lines etc. simply because there was none on the real thing either. But they do look kind of bare to me, so playing with a little extra fading and shading will hopefully liven things up a bit in these area's.

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Thats basically the way I do it to Jelmar.i started doing it on 109's and the rlm76.When you get to the upper surfaces stay away from the panel lines till last and mist.
 
Yet more work is done on my MiG. Kept going with the painting. First I used Vallejo Model Air Camo Light Green 006 and afterwards free-hand applied the camo pattern with Vallejo Model Air Gunship Green 014

Colors appear to be a little odd, but my camera had a little trouble with the lighting conditions.

I concluded all the basis paint work, so now it's on to further liven things up with all kids of shading and things. I'm considering adding a few black-grey area's too as I've seen quite a few pics and profiles of a/c that were basically in the two-tone lighter and darker green with patches of black-grey being applied in the field to patch up the paintwork. My guess is it could break up the overall green look a bit by adding some black patches on the wingroots.

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Thanks Vic! I must say I've been getting the hang of that lately, but it took a good long while of practising and messing things up before I somewhat got it right. I think I'm gonna redo some of them (post-shading) though to blend it in better with the darker green area's
 
Hey I like the idea of clay our something of the like along the front edge everything is looking good.;) Cheers
 
THanks fella's.

Hey I like the idea of clay our something of the like along the front edge everything is looking good.;) Cheers

That basically the Dutch variant of blue-tack. I find it helps a good deal in creating is good sharp devision between colors (not just between upper and lower surfaces but also when spraying camo-pattern and such), is easy to work with and if you apply it in a good chuck like I did along the leading edges of the wings and elevators it also prevents overspray.
 
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A little work on the MiG-3. A little shading back a forth with lighter and darker variations of the basic colors I used before.

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