Nice work on the masking, George @gblair
i do fully agree on your statement about vacuform canopies.

Start to lurch forward into painting. I got the canopies all masked for painting, then sprayed the interior color over all of the frames. I was hoping to start spraying some of the camouflage colors, but I decided to spray some Tamiya Fine Gray primer over everything to unify the various fillers I have used, as well as the kit's lemon yellow plastic. I plan to let everything dry overnight, then jump into the camouflage tomorrow. I am still trying to figure out the colors on this plane. The Sullivan book caption for the photo I am using indicated that it was a heavily worn and faded 3-color camouflage, mainly due to the light colored vertical tail. I can't see any evidence of 3-color camouflage anywhere except the tail. I think the fuselage and wings are the 2-color camouflage. So, my thought now is that this plane is a heavily weathered 2-color camouflage with an out-of-place light-colored tail. I think at some point the left wing was replaced with one that was paint overall navy blue. I'll see what comes out of my airbrush tomorrow. Cheers everyone.

6 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Looks excellent so far, my friend @gblair! Looking forward to your painting!

Thanks, Tom (@tcinla), Spiros (@fiveten), and John (@johnb). I should be moving into painting today.

Here are my thoughts about the camouflage: The caption for the color photo of this plane in the Sullivan book only talks about the dark color of the outer left wing. The caption for this same photo, but in black and white, in T-6 in Action by Larry Davis indicated it was a well-worn 3-color camouflage. I suspect this conclusion is based on the light gray tail, which would be a part of the 3--color camouflage. When I started planning my painting yesterday, I couldn't find any signs of 3-color camouflage other than the tail. I can't explain the light color on the tail, but I have decided to do a weathered 2-color camouflage with a new navy blue outer wing panel on the left wing (or perhaps a new blue-gray wing panel), with an unexplained light gray vertical tail. I like this particular plane because the paint doesn't quite fit the precise 2-color category.

Cheers everyone.

2 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Looking forward to your painting, my friend @gblair!

Not to cast any aspersions on the departed, but much of "photo interpretation" in too many airplane books should be labeled "photo guess." Back 40 years ago, the information wasn't there to allow for more than a guess. The unfortunate thing is that if a "guess" is cited often enough, it will graduate with honors as a "fact."

I wanted to get into the painting game today, so I did some quick pre-shading. I wanted to do some quick color cards to see which colors I wanted to use on the plane. I wanted to use the colors in the AK Real Colors set for early US Navy planes, but the boxed set had the late war colors erroneously in the box instead. I did have the AK Real Color for the required blue/gray, but it looked too light in the jar. So, a quick trip to the internet and I got some formulas to mix the color from Tamiya colors. I had all the needed Tamiya colors, as well as the appropriate color in Vallejo ModelAir. Quite a variety of colors. Any thoughts? All of these colors will have white added to them to get the faded colors in the photo.

3 attached images. Click to enlarge.