1/100 Plasticart Tu-95TJ "Thunderbear"

Gallery Article by Thomas Brückelt on July 7 2015

 

      

Tu-95TJ "Thunderbear" Fictional missile carrier in 1/100

For years the old kit of the Tu-20 Bear from Plasticart was waiting to be built.  Already on the first look on the parts I realized that this model is far away from a real Bear, so I decided to make a "what if" out of it.

 

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There were no details inside, so I built a cockpit and the tailgunners place by my own.  From an Arado Ar 234 in 1:72 the twin jet engines were left. I had the idea to replace the outer turboprops by those jet engines. But for my project they were too short. I lengthened them 30 mm with plastic sheet. I made a deep drawn part to make a smooth transition between the jet engines and the wings.

I built the simple F-104 Starfighter from Academy several times, so I had a huge collection of external fuel tanks. Twelve of them I turned into cruise missiles for my Thunderbear.

Two further external tanks were placed close to the wingtips.  There were huge gaps between the ailerons and the wings, also between the elevator and the horizontal stabilizer. I closed those gaps with plastic material and putty.  The trailing edges were too thick, so I spent a lot of time making them sharp by sandpapering them.  The wings and elevator had no structure, so I added some panel lines.  To make the model more realistic looking, I added lots of antennas and some more details.

The complete model was painted by brush. I printed the decals on foil from ACT.  After fitting them I sprayed clear, silk varnish over all.

Greetings from Germany

Thomas Brückelt

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Photos and text © by Thomas Brückelt