Here’s a new one for me, a Russian subject. This will be my first. I was originally going to just post the finished pics, but I figured some would be curious about this subject. I’m building the Gavia (Hasegawa boxing) of the Ivan Kozhedub’s “White 27”. Truthfully I don’t know much about Russian pilots, other than they got better as the war went on through training and better equipment, such as this particular subject. It’s my understanding that Kozhedub was the highest scoring allied ace with 62 kills, which includes an Me 262. I gotta admit, Hasegawa’s box art is pretty neat.
Regarding the La-7, I just don’t know much about them. I knew they were mostly wooden, crude in design and workmanship…and extremely fast. It’s my understanding the La-7 was Russia’s best piston engined fighter.
The kit appears to be equally crude and basic as well. I read some positive reviews about this mold and was wondering if they were talking about this same kit I had. Eduard has boxed this mold as well. To be fair, I was checking out a walkaround on youtube of a real one and in the close up shots you could tell these were poorly built and thrown together due to the obvious high demand. Perhapd the simplicity of the kit was intentional.
Anyways, I figured I’d drill out some stuff, add some cockpit PE, then give it a decent paint job and be done with it. With that, I’ll segue into the cockpit. As I said, it’s really nothing to write home about. I added PE seatbelts and instrument panel. Research indicated the interiors were a light grey. I used XF-19 Light Grey. I must admit I was happy with how the seat turned out. It should be a decent focal point for an otherwise boring cockpit.
In no time I was here. This is a very simple kit.
…but don’t mistake simple with good engineering. I had gaps everywhere. As you can see it needed alot of putty, particularly in the wing root "trenches’. The cannon cover didn’t fit all that great either.
Once I was satisfied with the seam (and putty) work, I preshaded and painted in the white and red parts. I also sprayed the prominent metal panels on the fuselage with Alclad Dark Aluminum.
These were then all taped off for the rest of the painting. So much better than decals.
The scheme I’m doing is the two tone grey over light blue. I believe AMT 11 and 12 over AMT 7. I started with the 7. I mixed XF-23 Light Blue with XF-8 Blue then added some white thusly. Since these were all wooden, I want to add some interest, so I faded and streaked it a bit with more white here and there. Later I’ll dirty it up with a post shade.
Next I switched to the AMT 11, which I believe is a grey with a hint of blue. I used XF-25 Light Sea Grey with a touch of white. I gave it the same fading treatment, to include the control surfaces.
Next it was time for AMT 12, which was essentially a dark grey. I used XF-24 Dark Grey. I rolled up Blue Tac to mask the pattern off then filled in with cheap tape as an addtional mask. I used Eduard’s La-7 instructons which I found online (below) to get an idea on how the camo pattern went.
Not bad…
I then gave it a post shade with alcohol diluted XF-1 Flat Black and XF-64 Red Brown. This is where they start to come to life for me. I will do more with AK oils later.
Here you can see where I drilled out the nose cannons. It was challenging since the barrels were angled (I’m not sure why).
I grimed up the underside a bit too. I hope I didn’t overdo it, but I suspect these got pretty dirty.
I’ll be decaling soon. I have to use the kit provided ones. Wish me luck in this endeavor.
