Thanks, guys!
While I like using Eduard's photoetched parts, I really hate the fact that most often than not, their cockpits are painted in wrong colours and the flat surfaces appear really grainy. So what I did was cut thin strips of Tamiya masking tape and masked the panels and sprayed everything else with correct cockpit colour. No fear of mismatched PE-plastic colours.
Cockpit installed and windshield attached. The assembly was pretty straightforward but I did manage to make a boo-boo out of a HUD. I've tried folding the PE part just with my tweezers but I didn't get nice 90deg angles and the end result was terrible. So I leveled the PE part again and used the PE bending tool (don't know why I didn't use it in the first place?!?) and fixed that s*it!
I intend to use Master brass pitot tube - you can see how much better it looks than its plastic counterpart. However the attachment point is much narrower diameter than the kit part, so I've had to attach the plastic one first, and filled the seam with CA glue. I'll have to cut the tube off and sand the radom cone to shape, to accomodate the replacement brass part.
The result of over engine panels under a coat of primer - not perfect or 100% accurate, but still much better than just leaving them plain.
Just before installing the tail fins to the model, I noticed on my reference photos, that the aircraft I am building, has strengthening plates installed. creating a simple template, I made those out of Tamiya masking tape.
