Here it is painted.
I'm fortunate to have the ancient copy of "Air Combat " Magazine, which has the color photos (nice, beautiful Kodachrome) of "Fargo Express" and "Lonesome Polecat," which give all the color and painting information one needs, if you know what you're looking for.
The strange overpainting of the lower color on the nose, bringing the upper colors down around the air filter and leaving a little oval in front of the intake, identifies this as one of the Aboukir "specials." British airplanes didn't come off the production line in other than the official mainstream camo - in the case of Spitfire VIII, that would be Ocean Grey/Dark Green upper and Sea Grey Medium lower. If they went to a theater with different requirements, they were painted at an in-theater depot. Aboukir was the depot for the Middle East. They did not keep to "specs" in their repaints, but modified the schemes due to the idiosyncracy of the particular painter, and some general ideas of camo change. The lowered nose camo is one of the latter. The overall scheme is an "approximation" of an "A scheme.
An important "tell" that the airplane went through Aboukir is the lack of stencils and wingwalk lines in the finished paint. This can be determined in the photos by looking at the one of the pilot posed in front of the cockpit, behind the trailing edge of the wing, of "Lonesome Polecat." You cannot see a wingwalk line on the wing, which you would from the angle of the shot if it was there.
The airplanes sent to the 31st Fighter Group had their RAF national insignia painted over with Middle Stone. what you get is the overall paint scheme is sun-faded, while the insignia overpaint is "fresh" Middle Stone.
I accomplished this by doing the overall camouflage and "sun fading" it, then lightly drawing circles around cut-out insignia decals for the wings and fuselage, which I then painted with Midde Stone which wasn't post-shaded. it's a very subtle effect and I don't know if you can see it in the photos, but you can see where the areas overpainted form circular cutouts to the camouflage pattern. I then painted the yellow wing stripes - ID for the 308th FS, so that the paint was "worn" a bit over the lower color.
Those color shots are also available on the internet, but they are not as clear and as color-correct by whoever scanned them as the originals. The colors on the internet shots are more reddish and brownish; I have taken the three here into Photo Shop and reworked the color exposure to match the original published photos. Note in the closeup of "Fargo Express" that the Dark Earth has been applied over the Middle Stone with more "overspray" than would be the case if this had been done at the factory - further proof the airplane went through Aboukir. Also look closely at the wing of "Lonesome Polecat" with the pilot in front of the cockpit. A "step" area has been painted on the wing - further evidence of Aboukir - and there is no wingwalk line going up the wing toward the leading edge. I'll add that "step here" area with a decal. Also notice the sun reflection on the fuselage - these airplanes were not in a "dead flat" finish. The paint is what the Brits called "smooth" (where you get "Sky Type S - what they mean by that is "Sky color, type smooth paint") Another interesting point is to look at the first photo of "Lonesome Polecat" with the pilot standing by the nose - compare that patch of Azure Blue to the sky backdrop - that was a very accurate color choice for camouflage!
Decals next, which will be easy, not having to put
8 attached images. Click to enlarge.
