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eduard
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Info Eduard - July 2011
WORKSHOP
Painting and weathering
Eduard’s MiG-21MF
eduard
24
Info Eduard - July 2011
Jan Petr
In the “Built” section of May’s “Info” ma-
gazine, we published pictures of an beau-
tifully painted MiG-21 that had been built
by fteen year old Jan Petr. Jan’s MiG-21,
which was featured both in “Info” and
on our Facebook gallery, sparked a lot of
curiosity and interest among fellow mo-
dellers thanks to its impressive natural
metal nish. We are therefore providing
more details about Jan’s secrets. Below
you may learn about Jan’s step-by-step
painting and weathering technique that
helped him achieve a realistic bare metal
appearance for his EDUARD 1/48 scale
MiG-21.
JZ
Initially I was afraid of natural metal nishes (he-
reafter called NMF) because this type of nish
reveals any surface imperfections such as cro-
oked panel lines, scratches etc. It is absolutely
essential to achieve a perfect surface before
the actual painting of NMF. Rivets, fasteners and
other surface details also have a direct impact
on the nal result.
There are many different metallic hobby paints
currently available. The best known are Alcad
II, Gunze Super Metallic, Gunze Mr. Color (C-
-series, namely C8 Silver) and Agama. However,
Agama is more of a metallic paste. This product
is applied using a piece of cloth and then po-
lished. I am therefore going to describe the tech-
nique using Gunze Mr. Color paints. It may seem
obvious, but this technique requires an airbrush.
A FEW OBSERVATIONS FOR STARTERS:
Before you load your airbrush it is highly advi-
sable to study pictures of the real MiG-21 sin-
ce two variants of its surface treatment existed;
either overall in aluminum paint or left in natu-
ral metal. At the rst glance both options may
look the same but the differences are noticeable
upon the closer examination. NMF is identiable
by its panels of different shades as well as ra-
ther dirty, dusty and grayish surface. When alu-
minum paint was applied, the color differences
among the skin panels are much less evident. The
surface is glossier too.
The approach to painting also depends on the
subject. Is it a WWII veteran or a post-war jet?
Further facts to be considered are operational
conditions, maintenance and type of the aircraft
- we can anticipate different types of weathe-
ring on ghter aircraft, transport or multi-engine
bomber…
PAINTING THE MIG:
I started by airbrushing the whole model with Mr.
Surfacer and polishing the surface. Next I spra-
yed Gunze Mr Color C8 Silver thinned 3:1 in fa-
vor of thinner (I prefer working with well-thinned
paints). Then, after this base coat has thoroughly
dried, I started to mask selected panels using my
reference photographs of the real airplane and
airbrushing six different shades mixed from C8
and black. Covers and caps featured on specic
panel should differ in shade as well. Panels were
painted symmetrically - i.e. a panel on port wing
was airbrushed in the same shade as the corre-
sponding panel on the starboard wing. You don’t
have to follow this principle on the removable
covers such as gun access panels though. When
all the panels were painted in different silver
shades I sprayed blotches to add some variation
to the previously uniform surface. When spray-
ing the blotches you need to use a highly dilu-
ted mixture of C8 silver and black. Again, mix
and spray variety of shades adding less or more