RCP Mig29 V4 NAMCV2 Build log - Part 5

Hi everyone -

Well, the paint scheme on my Mig29 V4 NAMCV2 is complete.... :)

At risk of boring you with a bunch of pictures of how the paint scheme came together, I took pictures at each stage of the paint scheme just for some ideas of how I like to do these "free hand" camo patterns.  This is certainly not the only way to do a free hand camo pattern, but one that works for me.  By doing it free hand I can be a bit more creative and other than waiting in between each color addition for the paint to dry, there is no masking really required which saves a bit of stress and fuss for me.

In a previous post, you might remember I was inspired by this paint scheme that I found on this amazing website http://www.mars.slupsk.pl/fort/mig/

So as you can see, mine ended up being "loosely based" on this theme with my colors being a bit more vivid and the camo pattern not exactly matching, but I think it will do the trick.  I have been finding that these types of camo patterns give me the best contrast to keep track of my plane in the sky.  I know that seems like a serious contradiction, a camouflage pattern allowing me to see it better in the sky, but whatever works... :)  I know from experience that the more subdued grey camo patterns work very well at camouflaging the plane and it's orientation...in fact too well :(  I lost a couple planes early on in my park jet career due to not being able to tell orientation because the plane blended too well with it's surroundings.

So I always like to start off with the lightest color first, I just roughly freehand it on with a brush, I use acrylic craft paints of all different brands depending on what I find at the dollar store, Walmart or a craft store.  Here are the paints I used for this plane.  I took a print out of the planviews above that I got from the website and tried to match them as closely as possible with paints at the store.  I already had the dark blue, graphite grey (for the nose and tips of the vert stabs) and the black.  

Here is the first color applied, I masked off the top part of the vertical stabs to make it easier to put the grey on when the time came.  For the "nose cone" part, I simply very gently made a little groove in the foam instead of trying to mask around the shape so that I would know where to put the grey when the time came for that.

On the bottom, I just blended into a reverse arrow the blue color and did the sides of the fuselage.  Other than to put some black on the bottom of the intakes for contrast, I like to leave the rest of the bottom of the plane white for contrast and to save weight.

Next I added the next darkest color which is kind of a grey/blue shade.

Then the final color, dark blue.  I find it takes about an hour between colors to let the previous color set up and be good and dry so that I don't end up smearing two colors together on the plane.

Then comes the dark graphite grey for the nose cone and the tips of the vertical stabs.  

And at the beginning of this post, you saw the final picture with the canopy painted black as well as the engine "nozzles".  A couple little boo boos to fix up here and there, but it is essentially done.  I will add a few decals after the final assembly has been completed and then it will be time for the final build report... :)  As I mentioned earlier, other than waiting between colors, I have found this to be a very simple way to end up with some pretty cool paint schemes on my planes.

It is raining hard today, so I hope to finish up the rest of the build which primarily involves installing the remainder of the electronics, push rods and decals and then I hope to maiden tomorrow... :)

Cheers,

Scott