Il-2M3 Shturmovik

My first ever Tamiya kit and I get a short shot example! Isn't that ironic?

Scratchbuilt rear bulkhead and the short shot version at the side.

Finished rear gunners compartment. Used balsa wood for floor.

Since they are such a big canvas, I've decided to rivet the wings. After almost two hours, this is the result so far... half way there with wings.

Before rivetting the bottom of the wings, I had to install the landing gear bays and since it's gonna be easier to do now, I added some weathering.

Slowly recovering from my health issues, so not much progress, but I guess I can call the bottom of the wings done.

And last but not least, the riveted front part of the fuselage. Rear part and tail were wooden so no riveting there.

And last but not least, the riveted front part of the fuselage. Rear part and tail were wooden so no riveting there.

Now that I am feeling a little better, I've made some major progress. Unfortunately the join between fuselage and wings wasn't the best so some surgery was required there. Machine gun barrels were replaced with insulin injection needles while the 23mm gun barrels and pitot tube were made of brass tubing from Albion Alloys. She's now ready for some paint under the coat of MrSurfacer 1500.

As I always paint from lightest to darkest colour, the AMT-1 Light Brown was the obvious choice. Again mottling over the black base with added different brown and light sandy tones to achieve the faded used paint effect.

AMT-4 Green added - starting to look like a real deal now!

By painting the AMT-12 Dark Grey, the basic camo painting is complete. I really like how the paint job turned out!

Mr.Paint having a smooth satin coverage is a big plus as you don't need to gloss before decals. Luckily there isn't much of them either on these ww2 aircraft so it was a relatively quick job applying them and sealing them with Semi-matt in preparation for further weathering.

All good things come to an end and so did my holiday. But hey, with batteries recharged, it's time for some work on the Il-2. Working a little bit over the weekend, I can say I am mostly finished with the the undersides.

Finished with weathering the upper sides. Combination of enamel and oil washes and watercolour pencils (starting to experiment with these). Just a few more details and she'll be finished.

With such a nice weathering on the Il-2, I've decided to try and make a little base for it. Heavily inspired by Uncle Nightshift's work on Youtube I prepared an XPS base and used several different elements on it, from weathering pastes, dirt and rocks from the garden, to static grass and tufts. And in the end, I painted it all in black! 😄 Plan is, to paint everything over the weekend.

I've been painting the base a bit over the weekend. I will be adding more colour variation in the next few days as well as adding some puddles and stuff. It may not be perfect, but it is a great way to practice new techniques for future projects.

Added muddy pools and algae, further played with grass greens, chernozem browns, painted the exposed rocks, etc.

Komentáře

50 1 August 2022, 11:16

Ahmet Eren İspir
I never had any problems with any of my Tamiya kits but that really sucks...

1 August 2022, 13:43

Edward MacKenzie
What the...?

1 August 2022, 17:44

Jan Peters
Following this one, I have one in my stash
Bummer the parts are short shot. I'd contact Tamiya and send them some pictures of the shortcommings, they should replace parts that shouldn't pass quality control.
Going to check my kit in the stash now 😄

4 August 2022, 14:27

Sebastijan Videc
@Jan Peters
I was at first thinking of contacting Tamiya but that would take some time so I decided to fabricate the part myself. If it would be a more complex part, then sure... thus I was just lucky to get by so easily.

4 August 2022, 16:27

Michael Kohl
cool start. Like the riveting of the wings.

10 August 2022, 12:51

Tom B.
Following this 👍 Have been somewhat fascinated with Shturmoviks since I´ve been going through a book about Russian Ground Attack Aircraft lately!

11 August 2022, 09:31

Sebastijan Videc
Thank you, Tom. May I ask for the title of the book? I am reading a lot and this would definitely help me keeping the motivation.

11 August 2022, 20:39

Tom B.
No problem, the book´s title is "Russian and Soviet Ground Attack Aircraft" by A. Trevisan and A. P. Borovnik. Has an excellent overview of the general development of this kind of aircraft. Sometimes it doesn´t get to specific, but features a lot of the less known types and some funky projects. Might post a pictures of it when I build the Tu-91 which is one of the builds the book inspired me to do 👍

12 August 2022, 10:45

Sebastijan Videc
oh! Thank you very much! I actually plan to build Tu-91 sometime really soon as well!

12 August 2022, 11:21