Finally getting started on this bird. Since these are to be recreations of actual vehicles, I chose Maj. Ed Rector's Flying Tiger. I'm hoping to paint the shark mouth vs. using decals. Wish me luck.

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

Keep us posted, Matt. I'd like to see how you do the markings.

The profile artist has this airplane wrong. The camouflage was NOT "sand and spinach." As a long-time friend of the late Erik Shilling, who led the six AVG pilots from China to Accra, Africa, to pick up the six P-40Es (of which Rector's is one), I can tell you from close questioning of him that they were all six OD/NG. Photos of these airplanes bear that out, so unless you're the kind of "hex-spurt" who mistakes shadows for different colors in a B&W photo (there's a lot of those ignoramuses out there) these are standard USAAF camo P-40Es. The AVG used the paints they had available to overpaint the US insignia (so any shade of dark green you come up with is as likely as any other). But don't trust the i***t who did this profile. (80% of "profile artists" are not making as good a guess as the average modeler could do - that's not to diss all of them, but the ones you can trust you can count on two hands and not use all your fingers - I've had internet screaming fests with some of these guys you probably heard offline when I had to use their work for my books). You can trust me on this, I interviewed the people who were there. You should do serious "sun fading" on this airplane for his flying it in summer 1942 in southeastern China.

Paul,
That is an awesome looking P-40. Excellent job AND thanks for the reference photos.

Tom,
Thanks for the info. Researching to get colors right is hard sometimes, so it's nice to get info from the horse's mouth so the speak.

All the base colors are painted, except for the over-painted roundels, unit designation stripe and that mouth... I'm taking Tom's advice and painting the covered US marking with a different OD green to make them appear more "in-theater".

I hope I don't screw up the mouth, but I'm bound and determined to paint it and not trust the decals.

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

Awesome artwork, Matt. I am very impressed with your modeling of aricraft. Looking forward to further updates, and the finished representation of your craftmanship.

Woops. Just saw your fine article on this bird. Well done, well done indeed.