Viking's "Chinese" Tiger

[Viking]

2010 was the chinese "year of the Tiger" and also saw an official Tiger Squadron Meet. The French Mirage unit EC 1/12 from Cambresis was one of the units at the meet and painted one of their Mirage 2000's in an incredible chinese themed tiger scheme. The scheme was (is) reproduced in decal form by Syhart decals. In the past, Syhart decals have been fantastic, but very very fragile and used an all over carrier film so each one had to be cut out. The newer decal sheets use more traditional decals with individual carriers so should be easier to handle.

Anyway, the kit will be the very nice Revell Mirage 2000 in 72nd scale, the same one that Paul is using.



decal sheet












should be a fairly quick build but i will need to find some 2000L drop tanks from another kit somewhere

[paulcolt]

Now THAT should be a gorgeous Mirage!! Looking forward to seeing it built!

[Sissel]

It looks stunning in orange and black. I can't wait to see this being built. Awesome markings.
Good luck!

Sissel

[Softscience]

Oh wow! That looks super. Where did you get those decals?

[Dirkpitt289]

I always liked the look of the Mirage but for some reason I don't find them around a lot so I don't have any. Those decals are incredible looking!

[Viking]

despite the lack of posting, i have been doing some work on the Mirage. cockpit complete and closed up, wings on. Now to add some filler and some sanding. there are gaps along each wing root and underneath, but its not too major a problem and should be fairly easy sanding. Wheel wells sprayed with alclad aluminum, orange was just a trial run to check for shade of orange, the real plane is a slightly yellowed orange, but thats too yellow.

[ShaunW]

This should look stunning, best of luck with those decals!

[Justin1980]

Those decals looks impressive and impressively fun to apply!

Good luck on them!

The Mirage i coming along nicely and looks stunning in the orange.

Regards

Justin

[paulcolt]

looking good!! I had the same problem with the wing roots. also after fixing that,the positioning offset the wing top and bottom. i lived with the offset,fixed the root. Did you have a problem with the fuselage lining up at the exhaust area??
Again looking really good!

[Dirkpitt289]

This is coming along nicely. its a shame about those wing root gaps though.. Keep up the good work

[Viking]

so, filling, sanding, filling, sanding; you know how the story goes. then painting. this is a deceptivley simple scheme, with 4 colours to spray; pale bleu-grey, orange, white then darker blue grey around the cockpit. the only trouble with enamels is the time they can take to dry (especially xtracolour). in this case, each colour is taking 24-36hrs (its a good job i have loads of other kits on the go as well, and work, and a garden, and a family...). the orange looks too dark in this light but in sunlight its OK. leave this to dry hard for a couple of days, add the dark blue grey and some touch up of overspray; should be starting the decals late this week or the weekend

[ShaunW]

That is an interesting scheme Viking and you look to have painted it well. Hopefully the decals will behave for you.

[splash]

That's looking great, good luck with the decals.

[Viking]

so i am a little impatient ....

all of the orange was dry so i started putting a decal on to see how they would work, then i added another one, and another one and before i realised it, i had done most of the big tiger decals. I was curious as to how they would work, syhart decals in the past have been very fragile, and with all over carrier film, were hard to use. these ones; i cannot praise highly enough, they are perfect in every way. individual carrier film is very fine and closely cut, they slide off after about 10 seconds after a dip in cold water, they are strong enough to move around with a brush and they dry like they have been painted on (although i do use a lot of micro sol). Thet stripes over the white panel on the spine are NOT individual decals, that is one complete decal which has conformed to complex curves and has disappeared into white paint.

[Dirkpitt289]

WOW, that looks amazing!