Peculiar Polikarpov

I honestly don’t remember what prompted me to reach for the ICM kit. The subject matter? Quality? None of that for sure. Whatever it was- resulted in a miniature of rather unpopular aircraft in even less common configuration. The construction process itself however, didn’t go without some complications.

An ordinary airplane

I-5 perhaps isn’t the most recognizable Russian pre-war aircraft. In fact, probably a lot of modellers aren't even aware of its existence. No wonder- it doesn’t stand out even among the machines with Polikarpov’s name.

Standard production Polikarpov I-5 (www.airwar.ru)

The construction that first flew in March 1930 was not revolutionary, and at the outbreak of World War II was already obsolete. However, after the German aggression on the USSR even the old I-5s were transferred from training units to active duty, where were used as light assault planes and night bombers. Naturally the not-so-young biplanes never achieved amazing results, and as soon as Soviet industry provided better machines- were permanently withdrawn.

The reality of 1:72

No surprise then, that there is not really a choice when you want to build a miniature of I-5 in 1:72 scale. ICM from Ukraine is the only game in town. Several years ago it released two version of this biplane: standard with M-22 engine and “early” (basically prototypes and pre-production batch machines) with Jupiter.

One of the earlier boxings of ICM kits

Both share some common elements and were praised as “nice little kits” in every internet review I found. The problem is, that they aren't. I mean nice, because for sure these are little.

Maybe the long production run had some impact on quality of the moulds, but I doubt (judging by the sprues' pictures on the web) that the first series were considerably better. Yes- the parts have very fine surface details, but that is in my opinion one of the disadvantages. Those are simply done to subtly. Some lines tend to vanish completely, other probably won't survive the coat of paint. The rest certainly won't be easy to enhance with common modelling techniques (e.g., wash).

The moulding quality doesn’t help either and made a lot of this pretty details just pointless. It's basically a mediocre short-run kit when you closely examine the sprues. Lots of cleaning, sanding and dry-fitting will be required. Along with some kind of modelling putty. You can imagine how will that impact those fine, delicate details.

So not a “very nice little kit” when you look closely, and even worse when you start to work on it. That being said, I decided to build little Polikarpov fighter anyway. In standard production variant with M-22 engine.

Initial choice

Selected ICM kit (catalogue number 72053) offers two colour versions to choose from. The first one is a personal machine of the Moscow's air defence commander I. U. Pavlov from 1932, which was captured on the box-art. All silver, with red accents and banners on the fuselage sides. Second option is a standard military Polikarpov from an unspecified unit, in a mundane green-blue uniform.

The first variant, represented with colour side-view on the back of the box, looked just more interesting to me. Not a very original choice, considering online galleries of finished I-5s, but it is just appealing colour scheme.

An additional plus is the fact that the Pavlov’s machine was caught on several contemporary photos of fairly good quality, which helps to confirm the correct layout of colours and markings proposed in the manual by the kit manufacturer.

Pavlov's silver Polikapov (www.airwar.ru)

There are also photographs showing somewhat different details (like most probably a silver wheel cover or a small spinner), but in the above configuration looks the best in my opinion. Without any longer delay, it is time to cut the sprues.

Beginning

I've started rather conventionally with a cockpit, which to be fair is pretty well detailed. Bunch of elements (even parts of inner truss), are provided straight from the box.

There is somewhat interesting design choice here worth mentioning- pilot's seat is one injection moulded element, which should be bent in half and glued. Of course some putty will be necessary to fill the resulting seam which goes midway through the base. Not a very common practise, isn't it?

I've decided that only minor scratch-building will be necessary. Self-made seatbelts were added and I replaced machine guns bodies, which were to badly misshapen in my opinion. Control stick handle was a thick blob of plastic, so I cut it off and replaced with appropriately formed piece of wire. Adequate in my opinion instrument panel was painted black and indicators were scratched with sharp needle.

As a main interior colour I used Silver (H8) from Gunze Hobby Color series. Some interior details were painted with gunmetal metalizer from Agama. Other with brown (seat) and dark grey (engine bulkhead) paints picked without paying attention to numbers.

Thin layer of flat clear (also from Gunze) was afterwards sprayed on the interior, just to make silver less glossy. Then wash from artistic oil paints was applied- black on silver areas (to simulate some dirt as well), dark brown on back of the seat. Artists oils were also used in less diluted form on a seat and especially- seatbelts, as an uneven strong filter, just to add a bit more of wear and tear. Last step of weathering the interior was done with Mud pigment from Tamiya Weathering Master Set A- just to simulate the dirt on the floor and lower parts of the cockpit sides.

After all of that, fuselage halves could be glued together. Front part, with separately moulded machine guns sockets, was probably the worst fitting element in the whole kit. It required a lot of cleaning, sanding and puttying. Well, maybe the last word isn't the best choice, because I don't use putty for some time now. I applied CA glue instead of it. Faster and more reliable solution in certain places if you ask me. There were some other fitting problems as well (e.g., lower wings-fuselage joint) but nothing serious.

Only now I came to conclusion that surface details are barely visible, and some of them didn't make it and vanish after the fitting and sanding process. Decision could be only one. I've re-scribed the panel lines, regretting that I didn't think about it earlier.

Before the painting started, I've decided to add part of the upper wing struts and front landing gear. I replaced axis of the latter with metal rod and the fuselage joints were strengthened with wire core. Tailplane struts were also made at this point, with wire as well. Some other small details, like pilot's steps, were scratch-built from plastic rods and installed at right places.

At the same time I prepared the M-22 engine miniature from the elements available in the kit. Assembled and painted with silver and gray paint were then treated with black and brown artists oil paints to emphasize the details with wash and dirty it up a bit.

Failure

I've decided to go with one of the box painting options- silver livery with red accents and side banners. So first- coat of silver (H8 again). Next, some masking and appropriate elements were sprayed with Red (Gunze C3 from Mr. Color series) mixed with a drop of Orange Yellow (Gunze C58). The upper parts of main gear legs were painted with Tamiya NATO Black (XF-69).

Now I had base ready for decals- I planned to heavy relay on post-shading techniques at this build. Unfortunately the ICM decals confirmed the worst opinions I heard about them. Basically they disintegrated upon the contact with water. Sealing them with clear coat of lacquer helped in only some extend and was not a suitable solution in my opinion.

Plan B, or rather C

So, no silver Polikarpov then. Maybe standard military livery? Quick spare decals box query shattered that possibility also. But there was third option which I considered at the beginning of this build. An olive/blue prototype with wheels fairings and no markings at all. Lets do this then, at least it will be unconventional, cause I didn’t see any model made in that configuration.

Unusual Polikarpov I-5 (www.airwar.ru)

That of course required some more modifications. First- the wheel fairing. Luckily it was the easiest part. ICM kit contains elements to make them, but curiously doesn't mention that anywhere. Of course at this point I needed to prepare wheels, which couldn't be installed later. Therefore these were flattened a bit to simulate the aircraft weight and painted. I didn't mask hubs or tires for this, just carefully airbrushed paint on a low pressure.

Other than that, the most conspicuous elements of the real airplane were aerials with its mast and bomb racks. Little bit of scratch-building and the job was done.

I used this unplanned build reset to add some more details, partly ignored earlier. For example the scope mount, Venturi tube on fuselage's right side near the cockpit and landing torches support on lower right wing. The last one wasn't a good idea at this point and those elements were quickly, although not deliberately, uninstalled.

Kit windshield, designed as two parts, was way to thick in my opinion- I made a new one from acetate foil. It was a little bit tricky to cut it out in one part, which would fit curvature of the fuselage after bending, but after a few tries- success. The hole for the scope in the middle was drilled as well. Masking, of course on both sides, deal with the matter of framing.

Painting, round 2

After this shenanigans planty of silver paint was gone, so I airbrushed whole model again with Gunze H8. Although the I-5 wasn't all-metal and I didn't plan the silver livery any longer, it was good surface quality test and base for later semi-transparent layers of camouflage colours. In appropriate “metal” areas it was also a base for making the paint chips.

Now time for markings. The top of the rudder was painted red (Gunze C3) and masked with little piece of Tamiya tape. And that would be all.

Preshading was done with two colours. Olive Drab (Gunze H52) on top and sides, light blue on bottom (H45). All of course in regard to planned camouflage colours arrangement.

To make upcoming scratching of the camouflage easier, I covered the “metal” parts of miniature with hairspray. I didn't plan any heavy destruction, but better safe than sorry.

I started painting the camouflage with light blue lower surfaces. First I sprayed Light Blue RLM78 from Gunze (H418). Highly diluted with Gunze Mr. Thinner (which I use both with C and H series Gunze paints, and also with Tamiya acrylics) and at low air pressure, which gives semi transparent layers. That combined with non schematic airbrush movement gives a non-uniform saturation of colour.

Next I applied some subtle strikes of Off White from Gunze (C69) between the ribs and filtered it all with thin layer of base light blue. But the overall effect was to bright in my opinion. I dimmed it with unevenly added thin layer of base light blue mixed with a drop off German Grey from Tamiya (XF-83). That gave me an acceptable result, suitable for later actions. For now however, the blue surfaces edges were masked with Tamiya Tape.

The upper surfaces of “my” Polikarpov were probably covered with paint called “Zashchitnyi” („Защитный”) of somewhat olive shade. I mixed two Gunze paints: Olive Drab (H52) and Field Green (H34) in 2:1 ratio, because I decided that clean Olive Drab is too brown for that purpose. With this mix I painted second camouflage colour.

Again: thin, semi transparent layers of paint and loose airbrush leading for non-uniform and non-schematic result.

Masking madness

I-5 wings and part of the fuselage were fabric covered, so there were plenty of ribs to highlight. First those needed to be masked. I took my Tamiya tape, put two scalpel blades to Olfa-like handle from some cheap hobby knife set and cut a lot of narrow stripes. Yes, of course- there is Aizu Micron Masking Tape which would save me some work, but I had only 1mm width one which was too big.

Next step was a very tedious work- masking every rib with piece of prepared tape. Carefully, with attention to intervals and parallelism. Whenever I could (wings, horizontal stabilizers ) I used one strip to mask upper and lower surface at one pass.

After the masking- painting time. I used Tamiya Smoke (X-19) which is semi-transparent and therefore you have more control on the effect. After the short session with airbrush all that elaborate masking was peeled off and thrown away.

Control surfaces were at this point already slightly indicated due to pre-shading, but it looked too soft in my opinion. So again Tamiya Smoke was used. This time no time-consuming masking with tape. Only carefully spraying with small piece of paper as a “migrating mask”.

The airbrush could now rest for a while, it's time to grab the brush.

Couple of details

Time to add colour to some details. Rubber covers of landing gears were painted by brush with Vallejo Dark Rubber (306) paint from Panzer Aces series. Pilot's step, Venturi tube and some other small elements got covered with mix of Silver and Gun Metal metalizers from Agama.

Cockpit opening edge overlay was painted with Vallejo Dark Rust (316, again Panzer Aces series) which in my opinion has acceptable shade of brown to be base colour of this particular element.

At surfaces which in original were metal-covered, camouflage paint was scratched off carefully with scalpel blade. Nothing excessive, only here and there. This is the point where hairspray layer probably helped.

Re-scribing the panel lines earlier paid off now, when wash was applied. I used artistic oils, black mixed with a bit of white- different proportions to apply at different camouflage colour. Model Master Thinner was used as a medium. After the wash dried out, the whole miniature was covered with Gunze Flat Clear (C182). That of course dimmed the earlier painted “metal” parts (e.g., Venturi tube) but that's what I relied on.

Now some metalizers from Gunze came to use. Two strips on lower surface of the upper wing, clearly visible on photos of the real I-5, were painted with Gunze Metal Color Aluminium (MC 218). Furthermore another metalizer, this time Stainless (MC213), was used to paint bomb racks.

The propeller was also sprayed with the same Metal Color paints. First Aluminium on whole part, and then thin layer of Stainless on prop hub. Only weathering implemented in this case was black pigment applied to blade-hub joints areas.

Those Metal Color paints aren't the “top of the shelf” metalizers from Gunze, but my first impression is very good. The problem that they rub off easily, which is often raised, can be solved with addition of Mr. Metal Primer to the painting mixture. At least it proved to be useful in this limited application.

A bit of weathering

After all that artists oils came back, this time in thicker incarnation, applied with a little to none dilution. Black oil was used to visually cut off control surfaces even more. Black and browns to achieve some grime stains and strikes- for example at strut bases, around steps and access panels at upper surface of the top wing. Brush damped with white spirit was used at this stage to spread and wipe the oils.

Lower parts of the model around landing gear, were airbrushed with Tamiya Buff (XF-57) to simulate dust.

Gunze Tire Black (H77) was used around machine gun barrels tips (not mounted at this point so some rough measuring was needed) with accompaniment of black pigment. The same treatment was served to four outlets around the front of the fuselage. Also the same set was used to modulate and dirty up the engine compartment, and Tire Black alone to modulate the inside of Townend ring. Black pigment was also used to mark the openings for shells ejection.

Now I installed machine guns barrels prepared earlier from injection needles and painted with gunmetal. Also I've decided that at this point the threat of damaging the clear parts of windshield is almost non-existent, so I peeled off the masks.

The fuselage was ready for installing the engine. But first I highlighted the pushrods with Light Gun Metal pigment from Tamiya Weathering Master set F and edges of the engine body with soft pencil. Then the M-22 motor was installed along with the not-visible in finished model air intake part behind.

Some more dirt now. Mud from Tamiya Weathering Master set A was applied on steps and wheels. Vallejo Dark Mud (316) from Panzer Aces line was used to simulate some heavier mud stains in proximity of wheels and tail skid.

Next the engine was equipped with Townend ring and cowling, both painted along with the fuselage, scratched to reveal some “metal” and shaded a little with Gunze Tire Black.

Entire unit, with propeller, was installed in the fuselage which resulted in rather odd-looking low-wing aircraft.

Little Polikarpov began to form and the construction was slowly but surely coming to an end.

The fuss with rigging

Now the hard part- rigging. I used knitting-in elastic from Prym (977770) for that purpose. It can be glued with CA, stretch a lot and it's easy to paint. Nice material, but still it was tricky and the most irritating part of the whole build. The poor fitting of wings external struts doesn't help either. But eventually I've made it.

Aerials were a similar problem. In this case, to differentiate them from rigging, I used stretched sprue. To be frank, even if I want- I couldn't use the elastic. Aerial masts would not withstand the tension necessary to make the thread slim enough.

All the rigging and aerials were painted with Agama Gunmetal and required holes drilled in the fuselage were treated with black artists oil paint.

All of the main elements were now assembled and only a couple of last details remain to be glued in place. Removed earlier landing torches support returned to it original position. Pitot tube, made from injection needle and piece of some photo etched part from the scrap-box was painted with gunmetal and installed on proper position (spoiler: right upper wing, next to the strut).

End?

This indicated that the work on this model was done. Finally. Certainly not the most easy going build which I experienced, but at least wasn’t boring.

But the most important question is: was it worth it? Don’t know, I let you be the judge of that. More photos of finished model can help you with that- you’ll find them in the gallery.

MMXIV