MiG-23MF (7183)
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Going through my mates feed i noticed I somehow missed this build. Very well done! I have bednu on my to-do, always liked this plane. Cheers 👍
Thanks, Alec! Yeah, MiG-23 has its charms, but proper planes have propeller(s) (pun intended). And ideally more than one wing (-;
Album info
I originally wanted to do 3922 in operational state. When I got to painting, I found out that the paints I planned to use are all wrong. I had bunch of close up pictures of 7183, but in a quite weathered state. So, I changed my plan, mixed all greens and light gray-blue and got to work on painting. I used Tamiya paints and all came out quite nicely. I then lightened the greens, so it would get that nice edge between the different areas and all the other faded spots.
I thought I would spray all insignias and marking with an airbrush, but the fuselage numbers are pushing the limits of the vinyl cutter, so I decided to use decals for the numbers - the insignia is still sprayed, because nobody makes weathered Czech roundels 😉. Decals went down ok (who knows me knows I don't like decals), but I also noticed they were off register 🙁. It may seems odd that the numbers look like new, but I actually have a picture like that - deteriorated paint and like new fuselage numbers. BTW: I also have a picture where the numbers are worn out and that's what I should have done. Well, we live and learn...
The model has a wrong sheen, it needs to be dead flat. It was after it was sprayed, but the decals and the panel line wash and me removing the sludge wash made it semi-gloss (*). There also should be more stains - both oil and rust - like on the real plane, but my motivation faded away, so I called it good and I am moving to the next thing. Such is life in modeling 🙂. And it is good to realize that jets are not your thing and those nice biplanes are the shizzle *wink* *wink* *nudge* *nudge*.
There are also missing parts, and some other flaws, but this build served its purpose - try to do faded paint. If you think the colors are too saturated, I agree with you, they do need to be less "bright".
Thanks for looking/reading.
(*) yeah, I should have sprayed it with flat clear, but I only had Tamiya at hand and was not able to knock the sheen down 🙁