My attempt at the Hasegawa Macchi C.202 Folgore 1:48

I have liked the look of this airframe for some time now and wanted to attempt this kit. I waited until I had some more practice with the airbrush since I knew this was going to be a challenge. I also wanted to use masks for most of the insignia instead of decals. I heard of other people getting great results with masks and wanted to see what I could do. These masks are by Montex.

The kit itself went together without issue. This is my first Hasegawa kit, but I already see why others like them. Once everything started coming together I began the painstaking process of primer and pre-shading before applying the base coats. The trickiest part came when I did the green splotch camouflage. It took about three tries to get everything filled in and fix occasional overspray.

The next part of using the masks began relatively uneventfully. I applied the masks to the underside of each wing and applied light layers of black. Everything worked great. Unfortunately, on the top of the wing, things started going wrong. The left wing was fine, but when removing the mask from the right wing it pulled up every layer of paint all the way down to the plastic. After some cursing and abandoning the project on the shelf for a few weeks I returned to fix the damage and repaint the right wing. Fortunately, I think everything turned out alright on that side.

Overall, I think I am ok with how things turned out. It was one of the most complex paint jobs I have ever done and it turned out alright, but I am not super thrilled. I at least learned some lessons to use for the future.

5 additional images. Click to enlarge.