1/72 Italeri Mig 29 

KB 744, Indian Air Force, Lohegaon AFS, Poona, India

by Shekar K Rao

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  India Independence Day 2004 

 

I got this kit second hand, and in partially assembled condition, from a fellow modeler in Bangalore. The cockpit and fuselage had been assembled, but not painted. I scratch built the side panels (although they aren't so clearly visible in the pictures  anyway !), painted the instrument panels and the cockpit areas and dry brushed up the cockpit to bring out some details. 

The fuselage assembly was spruced up further by putty usage, especially near the nose areas, and at the join of the forward areas wings. The nose was weighted with putty and a spare steel nut inside, to stop it from being a tail sitter of a model. 

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After this, the whole kit was given a coat of grey enamel primer, which luckily turned out to be the same color as that required for the final coat (Light Ghost Grey). So I just followed up the base primer with another coat of the same, and then hand painted the Greenish Grey sections, since I am not too comfortable with the feathering method for camouflage painting. I used my usual Fevicryl brand of acrylic paints to achieve this.

The tail stripes were created using Scotch 3M Magic tape, cut into strips of about 1.5 mm wide (I had to cut about 54 of them), and wrapped around the tail. The intermediate sections were painted red, as were the areas on top of the wings. This brought out the unusual Aggressors scheme quite well. 

I have created my own decals for a large bunch of Indian planes, and it was just a matter of picking and choosing for this kit. I am not very much sure whether this plane belongs to the Black Archers Squadron, but I had those printed out and lying around, so I decided to stick them on, since I felt they would make the plane look good!

Final touches included cabling for the wheel undercarriage sections, and drybrushing of the exhaust cones with silver to get that metallic black look. The jet intake covers also underwent a little bit of scratchbuilding to make them conform for Indian AF covers, which have two holes in the front. I decided against washes, since I felt it would ruin the look somewhat...

I also put in a whole day's effort into making a tarmac board, so that it could bring out the plane in a more natural setting while taking snaps. The photos were taken at the Jakkur Flying Strip, Bangalore,  with my trusty Nikon SLR, at f-16, with a timing of 1/500 secs and using a tripod. As you can see, they have come out pretty well!!

If people are interested, please do drop me a line, and I will submit an article on how I made the base board .

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All in all, a great kit for beginners. Very simple construction, goes together like a dream. I'd definitely recommend this for starters on a Mig 29, and I have one more waiting to be made in the colors of another squadron (KB 3126, Tridents Sdn). Let's see when I get to finish that one around!!

Shekar

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Photos and text © by Shekar K Rao