Thanks gents, @mlicari and @fiveten the story of this plane is one of me returning to 'rebuild' a completed plane that literally flew off the roof of my car when we were moving house in November last year. I thought the kids had it - they thought I had forgotten to give it to them to hold - they were right! Something had distracted me and that was that! The Zero that also flew was found and has been patched up - I view it as extreme weathering! As for the Ki-43, I wanted to be 'a finisher' - then everything slowed down with the move (I'm pretty slow anyway with builds) and CV-19 made its appearance, which as a high school teacher, meant I had to direct my energy elsewhere. I gradually re-collected the kit, decals, etch IP, and now finally the seatbelts and am finally putting it back together. I really enjoyed the build first time - its a well made kit and fits very well, and I will enjoy this even more once all of my 'Kamikaze Film' planes are built for the long expired 'Hollywood GB'. Anyway thanks for looking in - it is a great GB - loads of brilliant stuff, not least those contributions from yourselves of course!

This Oscar looks amazing @yellow10! Waiting impatiently to see the paintjob complete!
All the best!

The pre-shading shows up just fine, looking good.
Quite a bunch of paint experten we got around here.

Ok last update tonight. A little pastel work to get the ball rolling on the fading. Let it settle overnight and in some daylight knock it back a bit.

Thanks Spiros. I’m treating this as a bit of a free for all. I’ll need to consider the wash I use but I think the thing may be distressed enough now give or take a little oil.

Nice progress Paul, the Hayabusa is a very pleasing aircraft to behold. About your paint issue earlier, you can dilute AK Real Colors with its own specific thinner or any other lacquer thinner for that matter.
Looking at the photo it seems you tried mixing it with their orange cap acrylic thinner, which is correct for AK older acrylic paint range. Keep it up!

Thanks Pedro - yes I bought that as 3rd gen thinners. Either way not a win and I will grab some of the right stuff.

Spiros, thanks for the encouragement as ever - the research is usually better than the build. Anyway, here are some updates - subtle changes and still some way to go!

Looking great! Now, my local modelpusher just added the 3rd generation AK range, but alas no thinners! Will have to try some different stuff I guess, but so far I've only bought metal-effect paints, and they work OK as is.