[Fertig] GPM, Nr. 264, Il-2m3 "Stormovik", 1:33

i started to build a wings. i have to say, construction of wings is the weakest link of this kit so far. there's several pitfalls here:

- first of all, the "pseudo-3d" print on part 56, which is the wing surface nearest to the fuselage, is heavily overdone, which creates a very unnatural look. i forgot to take a photo to demonstrate this, so i'll add it next time.

- the inner ribs and formers are done quite well and create a good frame, but there's a few problems - you can see on attached image. marked as "A" - there's a reflector in the left wing in this place, so i had to cut a large part of the former. marked as "B" - there should be enough space for the steering part, but it is not, because it's about 1 or 2 mm shorter. i believe this is not my fault, because there's only one part that can affect it - 59d - which was shorter already in the kit. one more problem is with the flaps, if you build them open - the inside covers are ok, but the frame (59e) doesn't sit at the edge of the flap; it's ok at the side closer to fuselage, but on the other side is about 5 mm wide gap.

- generally, the fit of parts is not as good as i'd want it to be - mostly at the connection between two wing surfaces (56 and 60). luckily, there will be a thin long part covering this joint.

this is all i can say about the wings, i hope i'll manage to make them as good as possible anyway. the problems stated are not really big ones, but they're quite serious which surprised me on this kit.

and now for something completely different. there are two empty shells outlets on the bottom part of the wings, which i decided to cut out. i don't know what was inside of this holes, so i decided to make "a black emptiness" with several pieces of paper painted black.

left wing reflector was from simple one piece, which i didn't like. i cut out the printed yellow circle representing the bulb, added the cone behind this and painted silver. after a lot of thinking, i built the "bulb" with the method i've never tried before (and i haven't seen it anywhere either, so maybe i'm an inventor - hooooray! ;)). i used a transparent foil used for wrapping the food. i created a bubble from this foil, twisted it several times so the air cannot get out and wrapped around with a thread. to be absolutely sure it will stay as it was, i covered it with a thick layer of disperse glue.
below you can see both parts separately, assembled together and the final look in the wing. i was unable to take better shots, as it would probably require some kind of diffuse box or light tunnel

i also finished the deadly load of my sturmovik - two bombs and 4 rockets. i wrote an inscription in russian alphabet onto each bomb - "POBEDA!" ("victory!") and "ZA SSSR" ("for the soviet union"). a day later i realized i was like a headless painter from bernies awesome diorama (here) because the bombs are placed just next to the wheel wells doors. now i have to pretend i intended to do it like this, as if the ground personnel painted it before arming the bombs (and i was lucky since this variant is more probable :)). the poor quality of inscriptions is intentional - i wanted to simulate a lime-wash writing done with a really raw brush.

in the meantime, i glued the exhaustion pipes on their place, which took me about 2 hours . i had to cut a "wedge" at the inner end of each pipe, so they point backwards as they should. the pipes are made of paper, painted with mix of humbrol metallic enamels and drybrushed with aquarels. when i finish the build, i want to add some weathering, so the pipes hopefully look a bit like burned dirty metal.

and as the last post in this update, a to-do list:

- finish the wings, solve the problem with horizontal steering flaps
- build the wheel wells
- build the landing gear
- build the oil cooler
- build the propeller
- build the canopy
- put all the small parts on place (cannons, pitot pipe, some handles, antenna...)
- do a weathering (at least at the bottom light blue part and behind the exhaustion pipes)

a "maybe-to-do-still-not-decided" list:

- do some more weathering
- varnish the model (although probably not, i have no previous experience, so i'm scared :))
- build some kind of mini-diorama - just a flat grassy ground, maybe with a *little* muddy puddle, wheel tracks, a pilot... uhm, i'll see...

hi all,
this is just to let you know i didn't die yet...

i didn't do much work on il-2 since the last report - i've completed the wheels and built the landing gear and i started work on one of two wheel wells. i don't have any shots yet, i'll hopefully post something by the end of week.

and by the way, i've decided what will be my next project - and i'm working on preparations when i'm waiting for glue/paint to dry on sturmovik.
i feel mother russia needs some reinforcements for our brave comrades, so next plane will be polikarpov i-16 "rata" from free download from modele kartonowe. i decided to try some repainting in computer and after several hours spent on wings palette i decided to do "red 21" in winter camo.

and just to see what i'm talking about... left side is original, right is my "reskin".
i hope i didn't violate MK copyright

thank you for your words of praise, bernie...
when i saw the original graphics, that was exactly what i thought - but on the other hand, it's an advantage when recolouring it, since the fills are really solid, not dotted like on scans.
i have reskinned the fuselage so far (i'll add some more weathering, my idea is to have a really used plane), now the wings wait, which will be the most important part - there are some ribs that should be "visible" on the camo to add some realism.
regarding the exhaust smoke marks - i'm still undecided if i do them before print on paper or after assembly - but maybe i'll do both, some basic sketch in bitmap and fine tuning when built.
you're right about the red guards emblem (that star&flag thing) - i have some scratches on it in original file (in 600 dpi), but they're almost invisible in this resized sample - which probably means i'll have to enchance them a little bit more.
about the print - i'm not sure yet, i'll have to do some test prints. but first things first - so i'm working on it only when i need a pause building sturmovik.

for the present, i'm thinking about 120 or 140 g/m2 paper - it looks quite fine, it seems not too soft for big parts and not too heavy for forming detail, but i'll see more when i try it
and i'll have to try, because this is my second download project - first one was a japanese anime figure i gave to a friend, and i printed it on 80 g/m2 office paper and reinforced with the same - it wasn't really bad, but i think that heavier paper in one piece could be better.

and now back to il-2:
i need to complain to someone, so here we go:
the underwing pods with wheelwells are by far the worst part i have encountered on this model... oh my. the fit is quite terrible, rear formers are about maybe 4 milimeters too big, so they require a lot of cutting. almost whole pod is to be assembled from two parts - inside and outside, which would be enough for closed doors and gear up, but when building the plane with gear down, it's just "not-the-best-at-all" solution. according to instructions, one is supposed to build the pods as closed and then cut and form the doors, but it's complicated and should be constructed in a different way imho.

i also tried the fit on the wing - it is pretty good, although it's not wide enough in the place where the cut former is - but it's easy to repair. but i found another flaw - when i put the gear inside the pod, there's no distance between the pod and the gear (see attachment), which i'll have to solve somehow - i'll probably move the whole gear construction backwards
and, um, did i tell you there's no assembly drawing for this part?

well, enough of complaining. i have to admit this part upsets me a bit (and i believe i have quite great patience) - but on the other way, it's done wrong just compared to the rest of this kit, which is outstanding...

hi all,
i've finally found some time to update this report - but it's gonna be just a teenie weenie little update anyway.

so first for some wheelworks and the landing gear. i decided to paint the whole construction of the gear with acrylic paint - i didn't like original colour which seemed too light to me for possible weathering (bad for me and history it's the only gray i had - RLM 02 luftwaffe grey - but i couldn't wait so i used it).
the wheels are made with method described before, the insides are more like "my fantasy" but i'm afraid that the original insides from the kit were not much closer to a real plane. the "screws" are made of small drops of disperse glue (glueing was repeated for several times) and it's painted with humbrol metallic enamel. tires are finished with four narrow strips of 80 g/m2 office paper rolled around the wheels.

and these are the goddamn underwing pods with wheelwells. i'm quite disappointed with the result of my war against this part, nothing more to say. luckily, it's not much visible from the usual angle of view

oh well, watching the photos, i have two more notes:
1) the "springs" on the landing gear legs are to be painted again, somehow the paint went off while completing them
2) the bottom front part of the fuselage has a basic weathering applied - it was done with a mix of dry chalks, ground on sandpaper to a fine powder and applied with a stick for cleaning your ears :). as a final result, i want to have something similar like you do with preshading on plastic kits.

bernie:

oh well, i know you've bought one more I-16 from Halinsky publishers. now i'm scared you'll finish it a week or two as well as your other plane, the Bf-109...

and btw, i'll create a separate thread for my I-16 reskin as soon as i have something to show.

Hi all,
i'm finally getting close to the end of this build, so i'll add some overview shots. i didn't do much work on it (as always :)), mostly i connected the already done parts to the plane. i also didn't paint some white edges (tips of the wings, edges of cannons covers), it's still in my to-do list. some flaws can be seen here (like those damn underwing pods, there are some egdes visible on the fuselage to wing part and so on), i'll try to repair what i can and the rest will stay as is, nothing is perfect...
i'm quite happy i'm almost done with this model, i'm starting to feel the slight loss of fun factor on it, because i'm building it quite long already, so it's about time :). there's not much to do in fact, the last bigger part will be the canopy, which i hope to prepare today evening and finish tomorrow when i get some suitable foil to do the glazing.

uhm, and now for the shots

and one more thing - as you can see, the rear wheel is not strong enough to support the weight of the plane, but i still don't want to hang it because i want to build the canopy open. any idea, how to reinforce it, please?

Quote

Originally posted by TAD
Please describe us how did you did this wonderfull exploitation marks - smokes, dusts - all those things at the bottom of the plane. Could you attache some more photos of this places?

hi tadeusz,
i'll just copy the text from PM so that everyone can read it - maybe someone will find it helpful.
all those marks are done with chalk dust; for the main weathering i mixed black, white and brown chalk powder (i got it with grinding the chalks on sandpaper) to get a light brown colour, for the marks that were to be more visible (rocket, gun and exhaustion gasses trails) i used pure black in first go and a dark brown in second go. i "painted" the marks with the chalk dust using a sticks for cleaning ears - those with cotton wool on its ends; the most important thing in this part is not to make the marks too heavy, so you have to draw a few lines on a work paper or something so that you get rid of most dust and you draw nearly invisible lines - then it's time to paint on the model, repeat as needed. it's an easy method and the results are quite good-looking.

hi kartonists,
i just have to share this historical moment with you:

the zement flugzeug Il-2 is finally finished.

a few minutes later, i glued the last part - left wing gear state indicator - on its place, so now i'm waiting for the glue to dry and then i'll take some shots for this report; gallery will be coming probably on the weekend, since i want to shoot it in the daylight. i hope i'll be able to post some photos here asap, but my computer decided not to know the usb storage, so it won't recognize my card reader or camera, no matter what i do :(. i'll use my GF's computer when it's free, but she's playing L2 right now so i guess it won't be too soon

here is the gallery with some new shots; tomorrow i'll add some comments on the built here, so the thread can help a bit if someone decides to build this nice kit.

Hi Mindaugas,
thank you for your very kind words, i hope that this report will help anyone who builds another Il-2, at least a bit.

i wouldn't care about the real interior colour, since as far as i know, the russians didn't have any "official" colour scheme. in addition, cca 36 000 sturmoviks were built, so i think any colour is ok - but you're right, both gray and gray-blue interiors were probably most common imho.

i wish you good luck with your build.