Just when I think I have a pretty decent grasp on obscure World War II fighters, a commission build client comes along and asks for one I’ve never heard of.
I was contacted and asked “would you be willing to build a 1/72 IK-3?” Before I replied, I thought it might be best to find out exactly what an IK-3 was.
It turns out the IK-3 was a pre-war, domestically produced fighter plane from a company called Rogožarski in Yugoslavia. You can read more about it on Wikipedia, but basically it was a low wing monoplane that looked somewhat like the mating of a Yak-1 with a Hurricane, with perhaps a French tailplane thrown in.
The kit from AZ Models is simple enough. A single sprue with parts that are no too bad for that company make up the kit. While test fitting shows that nearly everything will need some sort of filler to smooth out seams, none of it is seriously egregious.
I finished up the interior fairly quickly. As the canopy is going to be closed, my goal as to provide enough contrast so that if you do look in, what is seen will look busy enough. The seat did not have belts, and while I considered using some photoetch belts from the spares box, I decided to try an idea I’d been mulling over and use thin sheet plastic. Using this gives a bit more relief and depth, and while it should show better on examination than flat photoetch, simple painted details should suffice. I thought the results showed that future efforts with this technique were worth pursuing.
The cockpit will be inserted from the underside of the fuselage after those halves are glued together, so that will mean I can really bear down on the sanding without fear of the innards dropping out.
On to the sanding sticks!
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