When I first laid my eyes on the Fencer in digital camouflage of Ukraine, I told myself, if I can get the decals fine, otherwise, I will jump into the deep end and do it anyway! I hunted all over and found there is one company in Europe that plans to make this set. When I contacted them, they were still in the design stage and the owner Alexander was so kind to offer a set for me free, that means one thing, I have no more excuse to let this thing rot in my pile. Having bought this model 2 years ago, I finally had the courage to open it up, the size of it is daunting, filling up my table depth almost from end to end, as big as my 1.32 scale F16I!
Catch 22 of the whole episode is that it will be ready sometime next year. Exactly when, nobody knows except the owner. Well, I have a set of Su27 decals from Begemot that I can hijack, but for the stencils, I have no choice buy to rely on the kit's offering.
The cockpit area were printed funny, anyway, its quite obscure and I rather spend more of my time to do up the ejection seats where they are more visible.
Once the model goes through the usual paste and patch processes, scoring of the panels came in right at its heels. There after, I had to plan for the painting process. I scoured through many photos I downloaded as reference and Alexander sent me his two side profiles and top view. So, I gave the blacks on the cones with the usual dark blue from Mr. Colour, I did up the preshades with my favourite green as it will react with the colours on top to give off blue, pink and yellow hues later once I do my secret sauce layer blending process.
After first black blue grey coat, I masked the small patches and then over sprayed various patches using the lightest grey coat, Mr. Color 307 Light Ghost Grey, I leave to dry while I cut up the 5X5mm, 2.5X5mm, 2.5X2.5mm squares for the suffering that is to follow which resulted in this.
Even though there are only 4 colours it has to be done in 6 repeated masking procedures as there are islands of dark and light patches on the masked patched.
Light Ghost Grey covered, now for the 3rd colour, Medium Grey which I mixed to be darker to serve as base where I can highlight later with actual colour to bring some interesting elements to the otherwise, dull looking camouflage greys.
Medium Grey ready to go one.
The underwing areas where the darker shades will be spray one and will not be highlighted amking the natural lighting apparent and also give it a higher contrast.
The action station
The medium grey going on.
The bottom received light and dark ghost greys as well as some browns, some yellow, some greens and blues to give it a multiple hue effect.
Another closer look of the hue saturation layering I did.
The top was peeled away and given the highlights. I retarded those paints and diluted it very thinly, So, 3 coats are required to make it noticeable. Bearing in mind not to over do it otherwise the contrast will become too strong and will lose its beauty. Trick is to lower the pressure and limit the paint flow. Periodic back flushing is required to keep the airbrush clear of clogging.
The cockpit windscreen still showed a little fitting line. So I filled it up with my trusty liquid putty, 4 coats is enough to eliminate everything. Once dry and shrunk for 2 days, I can easily "sand" this off with cotton buds and ethanol. Then the area can be patched again with 307 Light Ghost Grey.
Once I am happy that the highlights are used to bring the aircraft tones to near the original colour hues, I went on to do some colour modulation on the vertical planes of the model using a bluish hue.
The knurls and vertical surfaces given the dark bluish hues to make the model a little bit more 3D. Some browns and yellows are also used to give it some tonal variations to the otherwise technically cold and dead paintwork.
All the hues coming to place. Then I used my secret sauce to blend the whole substrate together to settle the pigments and to allow the pre-shades to blend with the over-covering paint so that the surface becomes satin in finish as well as the lines and patches becomes a little bit more distinct.
Tamiya Tapes ahoy again. After the 20mm yellows are done, the 11mm blue is masked using the pre-cut concentric circle to mask it so that is accurately centred. the cut line is patched over using small 5mm squares to prevent leaks.
After unmasking. Some leaking is expected, but not un-fixable. So, we can always glaze it over with Vallejo paints and weather it makes it more natural when compared to using decals. I secret sauced this later to help it blend into the surface to form a smooth substrate without increasing paint thickness. You can notice the multiple coloured hues coming through the paintwork, This is what I like, to make it differently from the usual preshading, I like my colours to be multiple toned to give it a more interesting look.
Done, the roundrels. The tail shields also went on. Once this is dried overnight, I secret sauced the whole plane to cause everything to flatten. It also help the decal shield to melt into the surface to cause it to look like paint. The carrier film is also dissolved so that it becomes part of the paintwork too. What is the secret source? Its my own concoction of solvents that can be used on both Acrylic and Lacquer paints.
Till part Two, Bye for now
Norman
