Firefox MIG-31 movie aircraft

Marv said:

Looks a bit rude
Are planning a kit, love that aircraft?

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I am so into it, I didn't see the obvious joke, Reminds me of Robin Willams when he firrst saw his son, "My god he hung like a bear" Nurse - "That's the umbilical cord Mr Willams"

Yes, most people want 1/48th scale which will be around 16 inches long, and a few want 1/24th.

As I have about 6kg of ABS I am contemplating doing a full studio scale 1/12th, although I might have to build an extension to the house for it, lol.

Gant looks sublime -
Have you considered stand options yet for the various scales? Something in clear acrylic with an etched movie logo perhaps??

Hey Firefox,

I would like to get on your list if you have one for a kit. Let me know what I need to do. The MiG-31 is calling me. Thinking in Russian. Also I may just give up on measuring that 1/35 fox. It’s so angular I’m not sure I can get a accurate measurement. Plus the exhaust areas are not installed yet so I’m measuring to the back of the mold. It’s a real pain in the ass and I’m not even sure I’m getting angles and measurements you need. I also suck at measuring so. I doubt you could do a cockpit in 1/35 right? Way to small? Anyways Firefox sorry to hear about your mom. My mom is elderly now and it’s tearing me up. Thank you for doing this. It keeps me engaged in life. I love this stuff and man that cockpit is amazing. I’ve always just dreamed it. You’ve realized it!!


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Using this pic and taking the width of the bottom of the tailplanes as 4.6 inches I can pretty accurately scale over the pics I have of the 1/36th master




It's fairly close, the front section is fatter and the nose appears to be a less steep, also it appears to be slightly stretched out in the wing and engine section.

Working on the stand by digitising the logo from this press pack cover


The render makes me think of the Atari video game


Rather than make another rod for my back so to speak I might just keep the stand simple, maybe a piece of hexagonal brass rod for the support so the model will not rotate. Quick mock up



The logo can be full colour printed onto aluminium plate, was thinking of adding a nod to Apogee and Grant McCune.

Wonderful -
Can you throw up the original pics of the master? Not seen those before!!

Here you go

Looking at the overlays of your s on top of the original- Yours is superior!
A work of art indeed!:thumbsup

Still working away, truly very close to done now near the 3 year anniversary of starting this thread, can not believe that much time has passed!

Doing the photomatch I could see that the underbelly pod and the bottom of the engines did not align right, so fixed those. Also realised the exhausts were too far into the body they need to be further out, and looking at that saw the bottom of the inner exhaust cowling was too far out, thought it aligned with the notch in the top, turns out it doesn't. So although it was a major pain due the complicated geometry fixed that too.



Have the troublesome front neck spot on now as I could follow the panel lines for the contours. The tailplanes look miles off but I have worked out why. I bought the original unused tailplane casting from Sean (t2sides) so I have a real reference. The bottom would have to be shaped to the contour of the engines because of the angle they are fixed at, so it looks like they all vary a bit. I have to re-do the bottom cut of the tailplanes as they were a too far out from the centreline, so might just add 3-4mm to the height, which seems to make them line up better.



Adding some extra panel markings that I can see, still working so only the side nearest the camera is done.

One thing I have worked out is the wings have not drooped over time, it does look like they were intentionally angled down



The red line in the pic should line up with the rear of the wing. That part does appear parallel in the high res flat bottom view I have. I tried a slight downskew and it does improve the alignment with two of the photos, not so convincing with two others that are of the other model, so maybe it was an accident?

Just about done, finally.



They really went overboard with access panels under the engines, especially as you can't make any of it out in the film. Spotted a couple more under the wings to add then that's it.
Have gone with the slight down-tilt of the wings. Playing around with the photomatch more it does seem to match, even on the ice floe model. It's actually very subtle but it does make sense, especially as they were making RC versions as it would help stability I think.
Realised something which now seems really obvious, the ice floe model was painted the more plain grey/black to match the footage of the full scale version.
So there's nothing wrong with using that paint scheme, apart from the fact it's a bit boring

What are your plans for printing this?

earthdog said:

What are your plans for printing this?

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I have my own resin printers, two Formlabs Form 1's and a Photocentric HR, if you go back a few pages there are pics of prints.

Thanks! I had been following this but haven't been on the boards too much recently. Your modeling is fantastic!

Just past the three year anniversary, Jon! Happy Returns, my friend!
Kind regards, Robert

As this thread has developed over three years, and technology has progressed along with it, I'm curious: what is the current thinking in terms of making this available to us to be able to make? Are you still thinking of making a kit? Or will you make a version of your designs available for us to purchase and 3D print when you've completed them?

When this all started, the ability to print anything was beyond many of us, but now that 3D printers have become so accessible... well, just wondering what are your thoughts?

Making kits is definitely the goal, I admit I have ended up with the resin printers on a maybe 20% work prototyping 80% personal ie Firefox printing basis. I managed to get all of them at serious low prices just by luck and a bit of a gamble, especially with the Photocentric printer as it was relatively new, but not well known and 0 official reviews. I still have to finish repairing my second Formlabs Form 1 as it was a kickstarter version and the laser assembly focussing lenses were literally tacked in place with superglue. One of them was at least 3 degrees off straight and the beam focus was terrible with what they call "rabbit ears" which cause printing errors. I think I will have to CNC a new part from brass tube to be able to mount a decent 3 element focussing lens, the cheap Form 1 clone I have working perfectly with a new diode has one.

1/48th scale would be very hard to produce at a reasonable quality level on the best FDM machines even with a 0.2 or 0.3mm nozzle, maybe the body parts as long as you don't mind a lot of work sanding and re-scribing panel lines as they will be 0.2mm wide or 0.007" at 1/48th. You need the resin printers with sub 0.1mm X-Y resolution for it to really work.
I haven't talked about pricing as I didn't want to upset the mods as I think you need to a premium account for selling.
All I will say is at a well educated guess Shapeways for example would want around maybe close to $1000 to print a 1/48th model, I would be looking at around a tenth of that.

Bigger scale, maybe 1/36th or so would work better on FDM for the all but the high detail/thin parts, so I could do a hybrid kit, part files for self print and a set of resin printed parts.

I will admit I am picky on the end result, this is a man who spent more than a day sanding and priming a Powerpuff Girl for my niece, because I thought the FDM print wasn't good enough!

Also revisited the colour, and think I got a bit wrapped up in the blueness of the blue... The darker sections are more grey/blue, but 60-70% is more towards grey with a slight blue tint

I need to add some more subtle panel variations to make it looks half way correct, as there are at least 5 different shades on the models, with graduations in-between or overlaid. The originals primer did have a blue tint to it, so that affects the colour towards the blue part of the spectrum.

Interestingly on the real tailplane moulding I have the resin looks blue/green with a plain grey primer splashed on. Obviously the colour this appears on your monitor could be way different so could be hard to tell.

And yes they hardly show up to the eye but they actually put rivet markings on the masters!
It's actually a very thin resin skin with a foamed polyurethane infill, weighs very little.

Very nice!!!

Getting ready to print the first 1/48th, going to try and print the rear half including the wings as one piece, fingers crossed!

Fingers,toes-even my eyes....

Well,how'd it go? Waiting here with bated breath....