1/72
Italeri Su-34 |
|
Gallery
Article by Mike Grant |
|
|
This is one of those aircraft that
looks great from any angle, I love the arch of the forward fuselage. I saw
a pic in a model magazine of an Su-34 someone had entered in a competition and
decided I had to build one.
The Italeri kit was the only one available in any scale at the time (I'd love to
build one in 48th!) The kit itself is pretty good, there's some nice
detail on the undercarriage and weapons, but some of the parts don't fit too
well, I really struggled to get a good wing-to-fuselage blend. I used a
Neomega resin set for the cockpit, it's the first time I've used one of their
products and I'm very impressed. Not only was the detail terrific
but it fit into the kit with virtually no modification.
Click on
images below to see larger images
|
|
The camouflage
scheme was painted with my own mix of acrylics and I used paper masks for a
slightly feathered edge, highlighting the panel lines with watercolours.
Despite paying close attention to the scant references I had regarding the paint
scheme and aerial positions etc., it wasn't until I took it along to our local
model club that our resident Russian expert pointed out my model had totally the
wrong tail-fins! Talk about missing the obvious :) I now have an
Su-34 wearing in-service colours on a prototype machine. Apparently there
are other errors in Italeri's kit in some of the
dimensions, but overall I think it captures the look of the real thing.