The Tiger has landed

First things first - this model takes A LOT of space. You can't even do much as the probe stocks out quite far away, the main rotor has 5 blades etc. I asked my friend to made a base for it, to give the kit a little protection and stability. 

I always wanted to re-do this particular painting scheme since I first botched it on a Revell/Italeri kit long time ago. I still have a 1/72 kit to make though 😉 

After long thinking, I finally decided to go with Eduard's rivets. If it was for a camouflaged scheme, I would have probably skipped them as the pattern and drab colours would mostly hide them. But when you make an almost white choppa with similarly bright tail...  

I didn't want the base to cover all the Mi-24 silhouette as it would be too big. Something to put it on. Along the way I found these nice chaps from Aires (or CMK - it went out of my memory) and they make a nice pair admiring and maybe boasting a little about the paintjob?  

In-box armament is quite nice, although there aren't any proper UB-32 or UB-16 launchers, so I had to go with Eduard's resin ones. Very nice although fixing them to the pylons was a real pain. 

To make some additional flavour, I added some wheel blocks. By the book there should be 2 each per wheel, but judging from the photos - anything goes. The orange-y tail was airbrushed. I masked the edge using a spare zipper decal (there are two on the sheet) to get the alignment correctly and then covered it with a masking tape. After inevitable overspray I applied final zipper teeth hoping it will all come well. It did. Although why Eduard didn't include at least a stencil for the masking tape is beyond me.  

Rotor head was quite bare, so I added basic wiring as not to overdo it. Caution - striped decal for the hubcap in both variants doesn't fit. I did myself a favour and when I spotted this, I simply discarded the decal and painted the stripes with a brush.  

Check out the WIP album for this one to see more of the interior. 3D decals really do a nice job giving proper depth to the cabin. Again - I wish I had seen some resin or 3D printed crew cooling fans, but no... I guess you just have to buy a whole resin cockpit from Eduard to get them. 

Weathering is minimal - it was a show machine after all and flew with this livery for a very short time. So even the exhaust stains are barely visible. After some research I tinted the tubes' insides with this yellowish-green oxide that is quite apparent on the photos. Falanga missiles are resin parts included in the set. Instead of flat PE wiring I replaced it with some Tamiya cable. 

And a very intimidating front view.  

Figures are really nicely sculpted and painting them was a breeze. They also went a little out of focus. 

And that's it - a nice helicopter that I don't want to repeat. At least with these parts - probably Trumpeter got a lot of things better. First of all - it actually has some surface details, unlike the Zvezda one.