1/48 Accurate Miniatures IL-2 Sturmovik

Gallery Article by Lorenzo Cassinadri on May 6 2011

 

Here are some pictures of my Il-2 Sturmovik from Accurate Miniatures in 1/48th scale.
This a/c operated on the Leningrad front in winter 1942 - 1943.

I built this kit out of the box, adding only scratchbuilt details and refining the parts which were out of scale and oversized.

The cockpit looks good as is, I have only replaced the reflector gunsight with a thin acetate one, thinned down the seat a bit and I have added the seatbelts with a combination of lead foil and masking tape.

Most of the scratchbuilding work went on the outside of the plane: cannons, machine guns, pitot and ailerons counterweights have been replaced with syringes needles of various diameters.

The exhaust stubs and the carburator intake have been hollowed out, I added the brakes and hydraulic lines to the landing gears and rebuilt the landing light and its window.

Many other parts (air intakes, oil cooler's walls, trailing edges and bombs / rockets fuses & fins) have been thinned down and refined.

The Flettner rods (trim tabs actuators) are a nice touch but they are way oversized, so I filed down the fixed parts and replaced the rods proper with thin copper wire.
This is a lot of extra work and most of it quite boring and the funny thing is that all this work will not improve the crude and ungainly look of this bird. But in the end I think the result is worth the hassle.

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About the camo scheme, I found a decal sheet on the Net by AML showing the same "Red 7" a/c but painted in the Green / Black scheme which I deemed more appropriate for a early all-metal single seater.

I used Humbrol 80 "grass green" and Tamiya XF-1 Black plus a drop of Humbrol 30 acryl "dark green" while I used a 50/50 mix of Humbrol 65 and 89 (middle blue) for the underside.

I sprayed a lightened version of the base colors on the middle of some panels along with the usual oil washes and post shading to achieve a degree of wear and tear before the application of the temporary white distemper camo. To simulate the winter camouflage hastily painted on-field, I used a white Uni Posca water-based pigment marker. I applied the white distemper in a solid coat trying to mimic the brush strokes of the ground crew (see the lousy quality n.20 photo taken with my cell phone...).
I waited some minutes for the white color to dry, then I carefully began sanding it with fine grades of wet/dry sandpaper, gradually exposing the underlying green and black in areas of heavier wear.

At this point I have applied the (few) decals followed by a coat of Gunze Flat Clear and a further light post-shading to blend everything together. This also prepared the surfaces for paint chipping (a mix of Humbrol 11 and silver pencil) and the exhausts and guns stains. A final thin coat of Humbrol Satin Cote wrapped up the model.

I hope you like the photos and happy modeling!

Lorenzo Cassinadri

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Photos and text © by Lorenzo Cassinadri