1/48 Italeri MiG-23 Flogger-D

Gallery Article by Pablo Angel Herrera on Mar 1 2018

 

      

Hi folks! Until the release of Trumpeter's edition of the MiG-23, the ESCI one was the only game in town. Italeri reboxed it with some really nice decal options for this not-so-nice mold. Bad shape, minimal details and almost no interiors are the order of the day for this kit. To be fair, it was released back in the early 80s when almost no information about this plane was available, at least they got the stance right.

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This kit was a present made by a friend. When I received it I checked references about the kit and also for the Cuban scheme as I found it rather exotic. Seems like Cubans didn't pay much attention to paint standards as shades vary from subject to subject so I used what I thought were matching colors from the pics I found on the web (Medium Green/ Grabber Blue / Light Gull Gray). Even color references differ from one source to another.

I found in a forum an article of someone trying to upgrade this kit which I thought was the way to go and followed his steps: MiG-21 vacuum windshield by Taurus matched with the kit's canopy, Quickboost's MiG-29 resin nose adapted and re-scribed panels. This indeed improves much of the 23's shape issues here, if you have this kit on your stash you can give it a try this way. Some washes were applied over Model Master enamels.

Cheers!

Pablo Angel Herrera     IPMS Guatemala

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Photos and text © by Pablo Angel Herrera