HobbyBoss' 1/32 scale
Ilyushin Il–2 Sturmovik

by Leo Stevenson

HobbyBoss' 1/32 scale Ilyushin Il–2 Sturmovik is available online from Squadron.com

This is the first and much anticipated 1/32 kit of an Ill-2 issued by Hobby Boss; other Ill-2’s from them have since followed. The brutal functionality of this heavily armoured aircraft interested me, so I just had to have it. It is a good representation of the chunky beast and a fairly good kit but the fit of the parts of this kit proved a bit irritating, however these were easily overcome with patience.

To boost the quality of the kit I bought the Eduard photo-etched set of armament and bomb tails, an essential item because the kit’s own injection-moulded parts are far too thick. There are many other items that are now available to improve all the Hobby Boss Sturmovic kits that have come out since I built this model, and they look like they’re well worth considering if they’re as good as the bomb fins parts are.

I relished the challenge of depicting this aircraft in its temporary winter white paint, which had been applied over the green camouflage scheme, and how it weathered under the onslaught of persistent combat use. With such a large model and with so few markings painting it plain and pristine would have made for a boring visual experience!

As a traditional oil painter I know that one of the ‘rules’ is that you very rarely ever use white paint neat, in nature there is no such thing as ‘pure white’; every white we see is affected by light and shadow and is prone to tinting from components within it and reflected off it. In short, don’t just reach for the Tamiya X-2 of XF-2 White and assume that’ll do, it won’t if you want a realistic model.

My starting point therefore was to make my own ‘killed white’ (to use old-fashioned art jargon), and so to do this I did start with a pure white but then carefully added a drop or two (literally!) of Tamiya X-9 Brown and a drop or two of Tamiya X-3 Royal Blue. Add these two colours carefully and in tiny amounts at a time and be patient, perhaps by dripping them into the white from a cocktail stick. This mixture should give you a warm-coloured extremely light grey/white, but you have to be very careful not to end up with a true grey or you’ll have to then add more white, and so on; a potentially endless process that reminds me of the Sorcerer’s Apprentice scene in the film ‘Fantasia’!

After painting the underside the correct blue (self-mixed), I then painted the top side in green (Xtracrylix XA1811 Russian tank green); it didn’t matter too much exactly which dark green I used as most of it vanished under the weathered white. I then irregularly dabbed masking fluid over areas and then deliberately unevenly sprayed the ‘killed white’ over it, and then, to cut a long story short, rubbed off the spots of dried masking fluid to reveal the green underneath, and repeated this variously as well as intermittently abrading it with wire-wool and other abrasives until it looked right.

I didn’t use the kit’s own decals, but instead decided to make this model to represent a Sturmovic flown by Nikolay Antonovich Zub (1911-KIA1943), showing the aircraft as it was in early 1942 whilst defending the southern front, including Stalingrad. Zub was posthumously made a Hero of the Soviet Union, and one of these medals is shown here with the model as a scale reference.

I hand-painted the slogans on the side which reads “death to the Fascist occupiers”.

I wish Soviet WW2 aircraft were better represented in 1/32 scale. There are so many fascinating ones that kit manufacturers should consider, so if any manufacturers out there are reading this, please take note!

www.leostevenson.com

www.leojubilee.co.uk

Model and Text Copyright © 2013 by Leo Stevenson
Page Created 30 July, 2013
Last Updated 1 August, 2013

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