excellent! And thanks for the H&S tip - I've been trying to mottle one of my 109s (1/72), and using my usual mixture of thin paint and low air pressure for small, close-in work, but kept getting clogged up with dried paint. I'll up the pressure and up the % of paint and practice with that a bit, and try again!

I resprayed the fuselage crosses and this time they were spot on, but some jaggies remain from the old cross! I should've sanded a bit more... to be fixed!

Parts of the Werke Nummer didn't come through the mask that well. I ordered a new set of (detail) blades for the Cameo and will try a third time, but if results aren't any better I am pretty OK with how it is. On real airplanes this number would regularly wear off as well.

I used Mr Hobby Aqueous Rust Black for the markings and had plenty of paint left when done, so I decided having a go at spraying exhaust stains. That was fun! Being a full-build mule, I made up and tried out techniques on the fly, like lightly sanding the lower fuselage spray with wet Tamiya sponge moments after laying it down. It gave a nice streaking effect.

Next I loaded the airbrush with a pale grey paint and sprayed the top surfaces and markings with a thin mist (dirty thinner, really) in order to tone down the colours a bit and make everything sit well. Again using Tamiya sponge I did some sanding immediately after spraying and this helps lodge some extra paint in the few rivet lines I bothered to make, adding a nice touch of detail.

I trial-fitted the torpedo and was shocked how closely it sits being the propeller blades. The spinner spiral was masked with flexible Tamiya tape (that was before I had the Cameo). The bosses of the propeller blades were "painted" with Molotow 1mm chrome marker. In the bottom views you can also see the two fairings for the steering mechanism of the extended tail gear. The kit inexplicably only had a single fairing on the centreline, which was sanded off and replaced with scratch-built ones, made from a couple of halved 1/100th scale Sparrow missile heads.

5 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Love what you do, Ronnie!
This is amazing craftmanship!

The digits came out extremely well, Ronnie!

Not much progress lately (5 months? really?) but it's nearly there. Haven't touched it since September either, but what I've done since last update is making a new scratch-built canopy (first attempt in the background next to the mould) and I added Eduard's Fw 190 stencils (which need some diluted camo overspray as they stand out like a sore thumb), which are the only decals on the model. I was able to remove most carrier film (a curious feature of Eduard's new decals), but did damage a few stencils in the process. Brake lines added to the gear doors. (For some reason the cowling ring is missing in the pic.)

What's left to do is finish the windshield (cut from clear plastic using the Cameo), glue it all together and finalise the weathering. And some seat belts perhaps, if I can be bothered. It's taken long enough and I've already started a new kit! 😀

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

To me these are major steps, Ronnie @skyraider3d
Your canopy looks perfect.

Cheers gents!

Somehow this project lay dormant for a year... time to revive it. I recently bought a new camera and took a few fresh pics of the current status - 12 months of dust and all (oops!) 🙂

There's not much left to do. I don't intend to go to town on it, I just want to wrap it up and move on. It's been a fun learning exercise. The main task is to finish the scratch-built windscreen, tweak the scratch-built canopy (or maybe make a third as I'm not happy with either attempt yet), and to glue the bits together. O yes, and find, fix or 3D print the tail gear, which broke off and went AWOL.

The rear fuselage close-up intends to show the contrast between the airbrushed markings (the serial number being the smallest one at 0.5 mm width) and the Eduard stencils, which really are a bit too prominent. Not sure if it's worth trying to tone them down at this point.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.