Howdy Hi! Next up in the tips and tricks is the SU-25 Frogfoot Aviation Company (TSBX09) for Battlefront's Team Yankee version of Flames of War.
Bottomline up front...this will come as a shock to some who think me a "BF Fan Boy," but this boxed set was a little disappointing.
You get a solid resin body and white plastic-styrene nose piece and armaments. The resin seems a little rough around the edges and requires cleaning at the all the edges. The white plastic was stunningly disappointing. I have built 6 of these by now and all are the same.
The nose cone detail seems all miscast and doesn't fit well.
The missiles and rocket pods all had extra flash that needs to be cleaned up.
- Nose Cone. One big problem with the nose cone is that it seems a little TOO wide for the body of the plane. So...you have to trim it up to make it appear that it fits.
- Decals. You get a great decal sheet. If you do either of the shark mouths, don't be surprised if the decal rips/tears around upper teeth as you bend the decal around the edges. Depending where the rip is you can work the decal back into place..if not you can paint the missing detail back in pretty easy.
Build Plan. The build is straight forward and almost like the standard plane kits. Nose cone on...then the weapons. Now, I will say that I really like how the weapons mount. Its a really nice slot system.
Magnets. You only have 2 magnets on this model and it couldn't get simpler. One in the plane and one on the flight stand.
This is the same configuration for the rest of their aircraft so this method will help there as well. If you've been following along, you know my simple magnet tricks by now, but if you're new check out the article on the T72s, BMPs, 2S1 Carnation, and the SA-13 Gopher.
- Place the magnets on something metal so that they keep the same orientation throughout your assembly
- Mark the top of the magnet stack with a Sharpie
- Put the first magnet into the piece with the deeper hole first
- Put the second magnet so that the opposite side shows (marked/clean or clean/marked)
For the Frogfoot we need to start by putting a magnet into the plane. The reason is that this is the deeper hole and has the greatest chance for the magnet to flip and trying to get it out could be a pain.
If it does flip, not to worry...we can guarantee positive placement on the flight stand since it has a much smaller hole. Now just glue the magnet into place and mark the top of the magnet stack (I cant stress marking the top of the stack each time enough). Make sure the magnet has the opposite up from what you see on the plane magnet's top. If the plane magnet is marked, glue the unmarked side facing out on the flightstand...and if the plane magnet has the umarked side up, make sure the flightstand has the marked side facing out.
Paint Plan. I used the paint plan from the Team Yankee book (pages 116-7) as a guide.
- Vallejo Surface Primer Black
- Basecoat of Vallejo Model Air 71.017 Russian Green.
- Then a hilite of 75% model Vallejo Air Russian Green 25% AK Interactive Dunkelgelb Light Base coat AK-007.
- Now the Camo begins. I laid out the general areas I wanted the camo using a regular brush and then filled in the space using my airbrush making sure I covered the line to get that soft edge. I did this first with Battlefronts Team Yankee Leather Brown and then with the AK Interactive Dunkelgelb Light Base.
- The underside of the plane was Vallejo Model Air 71.008 Pale Blue. I used the airbrush for this. I masked off the top of the plane using Tamiya maksing tape and Blue Tac. If any of the blue paint gets on your camo, not to worry. The next step takes care of that.
- I used a thinned version of each color and touched up any areas that didn't take right. When you do this, use a dabbing motion with a soft touch and you can keep as much of that soft edge the airbrush gives.
- The missiles and rocket launchers were paint with Vallejo Model Color 70.992 Neutral Grey, then built up to white using Vallejo Model Color 70.986 Deck Tan and finally Vallejo Model Color 70.951 White.
- Glass areas: Vallejo Model Color 70.950 Black, Vallejo Model Color 70.816 Luftwaffe uniform, Vallejo Model Color 70.943 grey blue
- Next the model is gloss varnished.
- Decals are now applied. Micro Sol used were appropriate to kill the edge and make the decal melt into any detail and when dry a little gloss varnish applied over the decal, ensuring this layer covers the decal and goes over the decal edges. This helps keep those edges from coming up.
- A pin wash of Black was applied to the detail areas. A pin wash is a very targeted wash, just to those detail area and any excess that gets on top is wiped off. My wash is a pretty traditional "Magic Wash" of 10-20% Acrylic Floor Was (I still have a bottle of Future Floor Wax I use) then the rest distilled water. I add a drop or two of Vallejo Model Color Black 70.950 to the mix and there you go. The Gloss coat on the model pulls the floor wax in the wash (and the rest of the wash with it) into the detail doing a lot of work for you.
- Lastly seal it all with an anti-shine spray. I LOVE Army Painters Anti shine. About the best I have seen. I use mine through my air brush with no issues and have never frosted a miniature as can happen with spray cans of anti shine. Don't go heavy with any anti shine...too much and can get a shine and defeat the purpose.
Jeff Flint "SonBae" has been a long time contributor to WWPD and admin on the forums. A long time gamer and painter and recently a new studio painter at Mastermind, Model and Minatures in Huntsville, Alabama. Trying to keep the cats herded in WWPD-South!
