Trumpeter MIG-3 in 1/32 scale

[javlin]

That last pic of the Gunsight looks good Al

 

[Lucky13]

Excellent work Al!

 

[fubar57]

Great references Wojtek and some very nice cockpit innards Alberto.

Geo

 

[vikingBerserker]

I agree and both points!

 

[al49]

Once the cockpit was done, I started gluing all fuselage/wing components and, I must say, I'm very satisfied by the quality of this kit because I needed to use very little quantity of putty, as you can see here:

Priming, that will follow soon, will probably help to detect other little defects, will see ...

Also managed to fix the gun-sight support bar inside the front part of the canopy

Cheers
Alberto

 

[Wurger]

Looking great.

 

[Airframes]

It sure is. Nice work on the interior details Alberto.

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!

 

[al49]

Started painting, done the underside and thinking how to do upper surfaces.
I'm considering to replicate this bird

But I'm not sure on two aspects:

According to an other modeller, who did a very nice job, see here:
MiG-3 by Tony Bell (ICM 1/48)
the nose was natural metal and a large portion of wings were red, what do you think?
many thanks ina dvance
Alberto

 

[fubar57]

Have you seen this Alberto? how red were the red wings of red 02

Geo

 

[al49]

Have you seen this Alberto? how red were the red wings of red 02

Geo

Many thanks, very interesting, I Will study it carefully.
Alberto

 

[Wurger]

But I'm not sure on two aspects:

According to an other modeller, who did a very nice job, see here:
the nose was natural metal and a large portion of wings were red, what do you think?
many thanks ina dvance
Alberto

Here you are enlargrd picture posted by you above. Let's see what we have here...

The Red 2 of the 12GIAP engine cowling and the Black 12 in the background. If we compare both colours of the engine cowlings we can see that there is a difference between them. The Black 12 has the entire cowling painted silever or just of the NMF. The glare of the silver ( aluminium ) cowling is clearly seen. While the Red2 had it matt and seems to be grey rather.What is more the chipping of the paint and the weathering at edges can be noticed too. A sliver ( aluminium) paint doesn't chip in the way. In my opinion the Red2 had the engilne cowling painted white but the colour was applied overall on the black nose. The entire black painted engine cowlings of the MiG-3 can be seen in many pictures with MiGs wearing the summer camo scheme. Also the engine cowling was the area where the black spot of the summer camo scheme was applied usually. Have a look at the third MiG in the row. It is of the summer camo undoubtedly and how it looks dark. Also the engine cowling of the Red2 looks like being dirty what could have made the appearance of the white paint , grey.

Now the tops of wings...

The difference between the tonality of the Red Star and the wing top colour is evident. The wing top surface is of a darker hue. I used the Gamma correction to check it and these Russian national marking got very lighter tone while the wing top was still darker than these red stars. So I agree with the opinion that can be found with the Geo's link that the wing tops were of the green colour rather than the red one. The idea of attaching of wings taken from another MiG is very possible. Especially if you have a look at the image below. It is an enlarged part of another pic of these MiGs of the 12th GIAP during a ceremony in the unit. In the shot you can see the Black 36 which is the fourth plane of the MiG row. Please pay your attention to the top of the engine cowling and the panel just behind the exhaust pipes. Undoubtedly both panels are of different colours comparing to the entire engine cowling and the white spinner. The side panel shows a part of the two tone camo. I think it is very likely these parts were taken from the next MiG-3 to fix damages. Also please , make a focus on the fuselage colour up to the side panel below the cockpit. It looks like it was silver painted. But I may be wrong in the case.

 

[al49]

Very, very good!!!
So, if I decide to go this way, I could paint the cowling light grey (or even paint it black and cover with a tin layer of white colour) and paint in dark green a portion of upper wings. This also means that I will have to seal the gap between the wings and slats as they aren't present on early type wing portions used for this bird, not a big issue.
At the end it should come out an unusual looking bird.
Alberto

 

[Wurger]

Here is a colorized version of the image with the Red02..

 

[vikingBerserker]

Great info! All this time I thought the outer wing section was painted red.

 

[Wurger]

And here something I found here...
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M-KWDWKZAfM

 

[al49]

Hi everybody,
I finally decided to try to replicate the bird shown in the above pictures, with green colour outer wings.

All upper and side surfaces have been painted in very light gray while for the nose I used FS 36118 gray and for wings I used FS 34102 green.
Of course, before painting I had to fill the seems between the wing and slats, ad there were no slats in those early type wings.

Here a few pictures:

undersurfaces:

Special attention went to wheel well covers.
For two items I used photo etched parts from "Parts" but the main cover piece wasn't available in p.e. and the kit part was aprox 1.5 mm tick, too much!!!
So I decided to sand it down to .8 mm and replace structure with tin cardboard items (white in the photo) I made with my cutting plotter:

Very soon I will start weathering that, hopefully, will bring some life to that light grey that looks very bad.
Alberto

 

[Wurger]

 

[Westfield Charlie]

Very nice.

 

[Hartmann52]

Very nice!