Sa´ar Israeli Dassault Super Mystere

This build is Super Hobbys new mold Super Mystere more or less out of the box. Here you see the cockpit. No obvious need for aftermarket parts 

Assembly is straightforward and was without any issues as I far as I remember
(Edit: if you do not want to decorate this plane with all the ordnance that comes with the kit, then put weight into the nose before closing the fuselage. Otherwise you'll have a tailsitter) 

Last view inside 

fuselage closed and ready for some color 

Primer on. Some blemishes still had to be fixed. 

Already had the lower half colored. But having cut a corner or two it showed. So: some more filling and sanding. I hope she is ready for some primer by tomorrow  

Second pass. Run out of my trusted Alclad primer and had to switch to Mission Models. Not bad, but I like the Alclad better. It bites more into the plastic and when you sand it, you get nice and smooth transitions.
Anyway. Lower half colored with MRP silk grey. Some panels highlighted with base paint lighted with Tamiya XF-2 white. 

I do not go for the well known Israeli 3 tone camo but for the lesser known earlier blue-brown one. 

Not having the original thinner I had to try a few from my stash before I figured that AK colors work well with Mr. Color thinner. 

Some subtle highlights added.  

A bit of masking  

2nd color added (MRP RAL5008). These colors spray like a charm. 

Unwrapped. 

Only minor imperfections. 

I want to add some modulation. Never did that before. 

Not too unhappy with it. 

Varnish and decals are on. 

Demasking showed a few flaws in the paint. Will have to fix that. 

Slight problems with silvering. Maybe my varnish was not shiny enough. I hope the top varnish will fix that. 

But starts to look like a plane now. 

 

Paint job completed (well, almost. The anti-glare area in front of the cockpit still has to be done, but this only after the satin finish of the rest of the surface) and some blemishes fixed. 

Last decals applied and those that got severed by demasking were repainted. 

Everything covered with a semimatt varnish I mixed from gloss/flat Mr. Hobbycolor varnishes in a ratio of 1:1. To my pleasant surprise most of the decal silvering got cured or at least significantly ameliorated by this. 

Improving the landing gear by replacing the actuators with syringes and adding brake hoses from lead wire (0,2 mm) 

Another time that I thought the paint job is done. Matt black at the Anti glare area... 

...and around the guns. 

To paint the naked aluminum around the stabilizers was really a challenge for me.  

Panel liners applied. Sand at the upper parts, dark brown and dark blue at the lower camouflaged areas and wings, blackbrown at the belly.  

Moderate wear at the air intake ... 

...and the leading edges of wings, stabilizers and rudder (a bit overdone at the lateral parts of the wings) 

Some panels highlighted with dark and light washes. 

Looks a bit exaggerated but I hope this will be ameliorated by the color fading. So another coat of varnish. Then oil dot fading. 

The two mechanics taken from CMKs SMB-2 crew. After a black base coat and highlights with white they received Lifecolors IDF medium green for their uniforms. 

I wanted to fade the paint a bit and to bring some more tonal variations to the brown areas of the camouflage. I tried to achieve that with the mottled technique by stippling a buff enamel wash onto the areas and blend it with a clean brush afterwards. 

Left wing done (meaning the right one in the picture). 

I am calling the paint job done.  

Belly with some soot and grease. 

Some detail painting commenced and some weathering added. The bright red and yellow stripes at the tail were toned down with a light grey wash.
(Ha, my paint booth almost looks like a hangar on this shot. 🙂 ) 

At the end everything was sealed with a flat varnish (which at some areas does not appear to be as flat as I would expect from a flat varnish)
Now only landing gear and some details. Wow. I am finally on final. 🙂 

 

I struggled on the last meters. First, the chap turned out to be a tail sitter. So I stuffed the front wheel well with lead, but that was not enough. I then just poured lead granules into the air intake and shifted them into some recesses of the fuselage. That helped. Closing the wheel well doors proved tricky too, as I had to thin the front one because of the lead in the well and all landing gear actuators interfered a little bit with the doors (the kits fault? Mine? Donno). 

 

 

 

 

For quite a while I wanted to shoot some final pictures. So here they are.