Here's a little update with the Defiant.
I have been reading where some have had problems with the fuselage when they were gluing the halves together. This is probably because of the tight fitting tolerance between the parts. It has been reported by some that even something as thin as a coat of paint can throw the fit out of whack. That is how good these New Airfix kits are now.
This is the reason why I opted to glue the parts in place first instead of painting them and then assembling them. Plus you get better adhesion when the plastic parts are not painted.
I installed the cockpit sidewalls and noticed a small gap was present between the side wall and the actual fuselage half. You can see the area I'm pointing at with a small round file.
I used clothes pins to hold the side walls tightly against the fuselage half while the glue dried.
After the glue dried I removed the pins. The parts are where they should be now.
The next step was to spray paint the parts using RAF Interior Green
Here's the cockpit:
Next I painted the little details with semi gloss black.
And painted the instrument panel while I was at it.
The last thing I did was to pick out the tiny switches and levers in red, using a toothpick.
Here you can see the firing button on the joystick is red.
By now the paint has dried on the IP, so I applied the decal on it. I used Solvaset to snuggle the decal in position since the kit part has raised detail.
Next I turned my attention to painting the oil reservoir using Matt Aluminum as the color.
While the oil tank was drying I painted the pilot's seat back pad using a dark brown. I found a picture online and the example in the photo is black in color. I wanted to make mine a little different.
Then I glued the oil tank in position.
This last photo shows how the pilot's cockpit looks now.
Hopefully tonight I'll join the fuselage halves and start building the wings.
As usual comments are encouraged.