MiG-21MF Polish Air Force Academy 1/48

It is MiG-21 of the Academy. A special decal of Cartograf and photo-etched parts are attached. It is a gorgeous decal. I began making it for the silver fuselage to try again, so I believed it would be painted silver at the beginning. When I put the left and right sides of the fuselage together, the body of this marking’s color is a light gray or light blue. I am a little sorry rather than metallic.

I have not been going fishing recently. I have lots of fishing weight to put in the nose. This MiG-21 needs 15g, so make 20g, just in case. The mold of the cockpit and the side panel is very nice, but there is no mold on the side of the cockpit. It is a regrettable point. There is a strike-pin mark on the side.

I wonder if the cockpit of the MiG-21 may be a blue metallic color to use for Zero fighters. I wonder if it is mixed silver or green. What should I do to make it a little more pale color?

The radar dome was painted in green FS34102, and the nose’s inside was black iron.
(09-Feb-2017)

It is roughly shaped, and surface treatment and filling of gaps. Because it is not metallic paint, I wonder if I do not care too much about the surface quality. Its long fuselage is about 30 cm.

After attaching the photo-etched parts, cautious handling is required. I want to finish this MiG-21 early before I make some mistakes to break it.

I removed the thin plastic plate on the top of the main wing with a nipper, cutter, and file and attached the photo-etched parts. Although I do not need to use it by force, The box says “Limited Edition” I would like to build all the parts as much as possible. Hurdles are high because I rarely do this kind of work in airplane modeling.

Various photo-etched parts were installed in the lower part of the fuselage.

I used Hasegawa’s polarized finish green-magenta film on the clear parts of the cockpit’s sighting device. But, I could not see the difference very much.

In the meantime, I finally saw “exposure of Citizen Four Snowden,” but my wife dropped out in less than an hour. Personally, it’s pretty interesting, but this is 0 entertainment because there is no thrilling scene in the image. Amazingly, original tapes are used. I’ll watch Oliver Stone’s movie near future. I wrote about it so much, and I’m worried about being on their list, hahaha…
(11-Feb-2017)

Areas painted green are dispersed like the front, rear, and landing gear compartments. I am now doing masking work.

The base color of this aircraft is Mr. Color No. 73, Aircraft Gray.

It is a large-format swordfish decal made by Cartograf. Illustrations of the fish are drawn on the left and right.

Since it became one big fish with a combination of several decals, I did not use a softening agent until I adjusted the balance.
(14-Feb-2017)

I tried the decal fitting perfectly to the plastic surface using a powerful decal softening agent and ultimately failed. The swordfish on the right side is better than the left, but the left is too much use softer and has become Wrinkly. Next time, I’ll try to soften the decal with a steamed towel.

Here is the decal on the left. After drying, it left a lot of wrinkles. Besides, while playing with the decal, I hit the metal parts of the very long Pitot tube and a small part on the vertical tail. I must breathe deeply and feel calm. I had not minded using too much softer, from the successful experience that it was beautiful after drying even if it became wrinkly while wet. In the future, I would like to be cautious about handling large-format decals. I have never used such a big decal in the past. Impossible to repair; I wonder if it will be destroyed. Since work has progressed so far, discarding is a matter of concern.

For the time being, I filed the wrinkled area as this photo. Well, not very well.

I tried to paint the right and left swordfish with a brush like a painter, but it wasn’t easy to match the original color. While drawing, it becomes wrinkled again, and it is endless. I drew a picture of a fish, but unfortunately, I did not have good art scores. Stop it and do inking to finish it up. Now, it has become a terrible thing; It cannot be helped…
(15-Feb-2017)

The MiG – 21MF was completed. MF is an export-type MiG-21, and this time it is a fighter of the Polish Air Force as the box art.

It is a large decal of the swordfish on both sides of the fuselage; I made wrinkles by using the Mark Softer too much and failed to paste them. MiG-21MF special marking of the unit’s 45th anniversary, 2002, markings of the 3rd Tactical Sqn.

As you can compare with a 500 yen coin, the total length included from the Pitot tube is very long.

MiG-21 participated in the Viet Nam war, Indo-Pakistani war, Iran-Iraq war, and African conflicts and civil wars, used in countless combats. Because it is a supersonic fighter that is easy to maintain, demand has been high even in the former communist countries and African nations.

I do not want to show photos zoomed up because it is terrible appearance decals, this time, I scribed the panel line lightly, so I got a clear line with inking. Since the aircraft’s color is pale, it changed to a lively impression.

The decal was wrinkled by applying too much softening agent, but the closeness is perfect. Half of the decal is melting and becoming one with a plastic surface. I thought about peeling the decal and painting it over again with a different marking, but the surface would probably be rough, and it might not be easy.

This is the exhaust of a Jet engine. It looks good inside when I take a picture in a light place.

There were a lot of sharp points, so I broke up somewhere in the process of assembly. MiG-21’s unique streamlined form is pretty cool.

Armed with one K-13A radar Atoll missile on both sides, one UB-32 rocket pod is equipped with both wings.

In addition, it is also possible to choose the arming of standard K-13 Atoll missiles and UB-16 rocket pods. This time I decided on more powerful weapons.

Although the decal became wrinkled, I was shocked after the AFV model’s caterpillar was reversed and completely solidified. It was a little hand-drawn swordfish by a recovery and became the only MiG-21 in the world.
(17-Feb-2017)