landing gear to be strong and
stable, but very fiddly to get the
correct alignment of the legs.
For every bad there must be a
good. The kit itself is a little gem,
and except for the four issues
I found, the rest of the kit is a
dream to assemble. The fuselage
halves join nearly seamlessly,
making clean up minimal.
With some aircraft there are
fuselage join lines and panel
lines, but as the I-16 is a new and
completely smooth aircraft, you
need to make sure the model is
represented in the same way.
ICM make this very easy for you
with their precise engineering.
A major part of any aircraft kit
is the fuselage to wing root join,
which can make or break a kit. With
curvature of the wing join being
moulded into the fuselage, you can
get a near perfect join. What helps
is that the wing to fuselage join is
also shaped to match the wing join
that is present on the real aircraft.
Although there are very few
clear parts included in the kit, the
optical clarity cannot be faulted,
especially since it is a continuous
curvature of clear plastic. Port,
starboard, and tail lights
are also included on
the clear sprue.THE PAINTING
When it comes to
doing Soviet Second
World War subjects, you
have a plethora of diversity
in how you paint and weather it.
Upon looking at many reference
pictures in books and online, I
found many inconsistencies in
the manufacturing of the real
aircraft, such as cockpits in
different colours, and fuselage
and underside base coloursvarying significantly in tone.
As with any build, I started
by priming the entire aircraft in
UMP Black Primer. I do this for a
few reasons. Firstly, black shows
any imperfections in the building
process, such as missed seam lines,
scratches, and rough plastic.
I also do this because it allows
me to pre-weather some of the
paint work. I know many modellers
like to build the model perfectly
clean, and then weather it from
there. But I prefer to weather
from the start, as I know from the
beginning of the build where I
want to go with the weathering.
Finally, I prime in black
as it darkens the base colour,
creating tonal variation.
I used one airbrush for the
entire build. The UMP Apex was
perfect for this build; it can do the
fine detail needed, as well as a wide
spray pattern for the base coats. The
cockpit was painted with Mr. Hobby
Aqueous Dark Grey, mixed with
light blue, and faded with lighter
and darker mixes of the base colour.The green colour of the aircraft
is one that has people asking a lot
of questions. The callout was for
Tamiya XF-61, but I was not certain
that this was the most accurate
colour. I have seen builds with this
colour and it looks great, but I find
that that the colour is more olive
than dark green. I chose to paint the
aircraft in Mr. Hobby H320, which
is a colour for German armour, but
the tonal variations and weathering
completely changes the colour.
I mixed separate cups of paint,
with some of the base colour mixed
with black, and some with white.
I used these colours to randomly
add scribbles and patterns to the
paintwork, which breaks up the
base colour, and then misted over
the entire mottled area with the
base colour to blend it back in.
The same effect was done on the
underside with Tamiya XF-23.
To distinguish my I-16 from the
rest, I wanted to add something
that most would not. I went onlineand found a picture of an I-16
with white stripes on the wings,
which had been very war-torn and
chipped to high heaven. I decided
to add this feature to my model
with a simple chipping technique.
The use of hairspray for
chipping seems to be fading away,
but it is a technique I still
really enjoy. I sprayed the
wing areas with a layer
of hairspray, allowed
a few hours, and then
sprayed a layer of Mr.
Hobby Aqueous Off White.
Then, with some water and
a rough brush, I chipped and
rubbed away at the white paint
until I got the effect I was after.
The propeller was given
similar treatment but without
the hairspray. I painted it with
AK Xtreme Metal Aluminium.
With it being enamel, I wanted to
ensure it was dry before handling
and chipping. After three days
of drying, I painted over the“ONE OF MY FAVOURITE STAGES OF
ANY BUILD IS THE WEATHERING, THE
MAJORITY OF WHICH WAS DONE IN THE
PAINTING STAGE OF THE AIRCRAFT”
34 • FEBRUARY 2018 • SCALE AVIATION MODELLER INTERNATIONAL
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