AREA 88: "Call in Hawkeye!"

1
June 17, 2022
I love this ARII boxes. So exciting to see what's inside!
2
June 17, 2022
Oh, my... I guess that's what you get when you buy a cheap "partially started" kit off eBay. This will take some heavy duty cleaning...
3
June 17, 2022
Not perfect. But I found white plastic underneath all that mystery gunk. We can work with this.
4
June 17, 2022
This Tsukuda Hobby kit seems to be the "goldylocks" kit for this project. It's better than the 1/144 Airfix MiG-21s (which I only really use as cannon fodder to be blown up), but not good enough for a staring role like the Eduard ones.
5
June 17, 2022
As you can see from the sprues, there's enough detail for a MiG-21 to be in a strong supporting role in this project. It's good, but not so great that it'll outshine the RA-5C Vigilante.
6
June 17, 2022
I hate empty cavernous air intakes, so let's add a bit of plastic card and frame out the space a bit.
7
June 17, 2022
Yeah. That's better. Also plenty of room inside the fuselage for the engine lights and still enough to add some explosion bits later.
8
June 17, 2022
The inside of the MiG-21 is a bit tight, but I don't need all that much for this one.
9
June 18, 2022
All buttoned up... now for some putty. The the area where the cockpit connects to the rear fuselage on the RA-5C is a bit thin, so I added some plastic card to bring the joint up to the same level.
10
June 24, 2022
Time to add a pilot. It's a bit of a tight squeeze, especially with the seat going in as well.
11
June 25, 2022
I finally broke down and bought paint other than Tamiya. Vallejo has a very good "MiG turquoise" so who am I to argue?
12
June 25, 2022
Canopy's fit... barely. They worked during the dry fit, but after glueing them in place they've rubbed some of the paint off the pilot helmets on the inside. Oh, well, nothing I can really do about it without a LOT of extra work.
13
July 23, 2022
First coats of paint... and some masking for the second one on the RA-5C.
14
July 23, 2022
Yeah. I thought about freestyling the camouflage... I'm glad I didn't. One small masking error on the nose though, but we can fix that.
15
July 23, 2022
No masking issues on the MiG-21. Looking good... albeit a little too "clean".
16
July 24, 2022
Yeah. A panel wash and now we're looking a little more "lived in", right?
17
July 27, 2022
Some painted cotton to start trying to figure out how the explosion is going to look. We can hide a few LED lights in there I think.
18
July 28, 2022
One red LED on top... two on the bottom... that should be enough, right?
19
July 28, 2022
YEAH Baby! BOOM!
20
August 2, 2022
21
August 2, 2022
22
August 2, 2022
23
August 2, 2022
24
August 2, 2022
25
August 2, 2022
26
August 2, 2022
27
August 2, 2022

Comments

29 17 June 2022, 15:49

Greg Baker
Since my main Tamiya airbrush is down for the count while I wait for one tiny part to make its way on foot from Japan to my door... I thought I'd start a project that has more construction than detailed painting required...

17 June 2022, 16:08

Greg Baker
I bought a "slightly started" kit off eBay. Opened the box and it was quite the horror show. I don't know what the previous owner thought he was doing, but he painted it with some horrible gunk. It was so cracked and wrinkled, I thought the plastic itself was damaged, but after some soaking in a bath of lacquer thinner and some elbow grease, I discovered an actual plastic kit underneath. It's lucky that he somehow missed part of the tail, or I would have never known what colour the plastic was supposed to be.

17 June 2022, 16:12

Greg Baker
I'm not sure how rare it is, but I haven't run across them very often. It was more a combination of "right in front of me" and "the price was right". I knew it had some issues from the photos online, but at first it looked much worse up close. 😉

17 June 2022, 17:36

Spanjaard
that was a horror show to clear, but you did great. let's see rest of the magic 🙂

22 June 2022, 11:02

Michael Kohl
Anxious where this is going... 🙂

22 June 2022, 11:22

Greg Baker
I gotta say, it took me a couple of stabs at the paint scheme for this one, but I'm pleasantly surprised at how well it turned out. Still time to screw it up, of course, but considering what a mess it was "under previous management", at least at this point I feel like I saved it. 😉

23 July 2022, 04:48

Spanjaard
Looking good

23 July 2022, 10:33

bughunter
You are very productive at the moment 👍 It is hard not to overlook one of your great projects!

23 July 2022, 10:53

Nils Steyaert
i like what im seeing so far, im following 🙂

23 July 2022, 11:43

Matthew A
Ka booom

27 July 2022, 15:11

Greg Baker
Yep... Kaboom! 😉

27 July 2022, 21:33

S M
This started as a horror show and became really fun diorama 😄

27 July 2022, 21:45

Hans-Jürgen Haag
Fantastic!👍👍👍

28 July 2022, 08:15

Łukasz Gliński
Oh wow, what an explosion! 👍

28 July 2022, 11:03

Jay Dubya
If I may make a suggestion Greg, the only thing missing is the pilot on a spring ejecting ... but I confess I'm not familar with how this story ends. Definately not well for the Vigilante!
Nice work

28 July 2022, 12:07

Greg Baker
Hah... thanks for the tip Jay.. unfortunately the MiG-21 catches the Vigilante by surprise and there were no survivors... Once I'm done, I'll upload the sequence to my strobez.ca blog so you can check out the action. 😉

28 July 2022, 16:59

Spanjaard
LOL!

29 July 2022, 09:59

Greg Baker
Bwahaha!

29 July 2022, 17:29

Greg Baker
And... we're done! I have to say, looking at the before/after pics on this one... I impressed myself. I also think this is probably the best explosion I've been able to pull off. I've already blown up an F-14 and and F-111... but the RA-5C went up like a roman candle! 😉

2 August 2022, 05:51

Spanjaard
i agree with you Greg, it looks really fantastic!

2 August 2022, 08:09

Lochsa River
you are mastering blowing things up, Greg...nice stuff!

2 August 2022, 08:15

bughunter
That explosion is really looking great 👍 Is this steady light or those flickering LEDs?

2 August 2022, 09:56

Greg Baker
Thanks guys. The lights are steady… but I should've made flickering ones. There's a pretty easy way to do it using cheap fake candle LEDs. Where were your good ideas when I needed them? 😉

2 August 2022, 15:03

bughunter
Sorry! I plead guilty.

2 August 2022, 15:10

Greg Baker
Haha! I expect better from you next time!

In the meantime, I've updated the build on my blog page - so if you want to read the couple of pages this scene is based on, feel free. I've also including the video of the lights in action.

strobez.ca/wp/index...-in-hawkeye-area-88/

2 August 2022, 18:03

Greg Baker
For those of you too lazy to click on the blog:

Youtube Video

2 August 2022, 18:04

S M
Really nice exploision! 😄 Well done!

2 August 2022, 18:50

Project info

AREA 88: "Call in Hawkeye!"

27 images

1:144

Completed

1:144 Mikoyan Mig-21 "Fishbed" (Tsukuda Hobby J08)

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