1/48 AMK MiG-31BM

Gallery Article by Jay Vlad on Oct 1 2019

 

      

I present to you my latest completion in 1/48 scale: AMK's MiG-31BM. This is another impressive example of Russian aeronautical engineering. For being in 1/48 scale, this is a large aircraft. I can only imagine what the real thing looks like. The BM is an upgraded version of the MiG-31 and is currently in service with the Russian Aerospace Forces.

Click on images below to see larger images

AMK's kit is very well engineered. The designers factored in the build process to make it as simple and straight forward as possible. There was nothing complicated about it. The fit of the parts was very tight, and only a couple areas required a little bit of putty and sanding. As I like to produce the highest quality finish, I added aftermarket wheels, exhaust nozzles, decals, and missiles. The aftermarket missiles were the R-77s, and the R-73s were take from my previous GWH MiG-29 kit where I had two left over. This kit also came with metal components, such as landing gear struts and pitot tube. 

For the main color, I chose AK Interactive Real Color MiG-25/31 Grey. I felt it was most accurate to the reference photos that I was using. The remaining colors such as the cockpit, radome, landing gear, and wheel hubs, were painted with MR Paint. For weathering, I used Tamiya Dark Gray Panel Line Accent Color. The panel lines are heavy on this kit, so I kept the panel line washes more on the subtle side. The decals were the most time consuming part of this build. The Begemot decals were very nice, but I did have some that had trouble responding to the decal solution and as a result, there was some minor silvering in some areas. One new technique that I did on this build was oil streaks in front of the exhaust nozzles, and underneath the rear part of the fuselage, using Abteilung 502 oils. Alclad Gloss Klear Koat was used between weathering and decals, and Flat as the final coat. 

I hope you enjoy the photos.

Jay Vlad

Click on images below to see larger images

 

Photos and text © by Jay Vlad