Dashed exciting now! I'm nearly finished.
This morning I've sprayed the missing white theatre marking without tearing off the fin flash, which was a relief. I also noticed that the white doesn't extend over the fabric covered rudder. Should it go over the elevator? Eduard says yes but photographs say no. Darn it! I'm not correcting another mistake. I'll leave it as a warning not to use kit instruction sheets as reliable references.
After that masking and faffing about it was pleasant to freehand spray a coat of gloss, tinted slightly with Tamiya Smoke, to unify the decals and the paint and then to start applying a bit of muck from the exhausts and guns.
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It seems quite excessive, especially the guns but according to my references, it's not enough.
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I'll brush some more grime over it all later when its had a chance to dry. Looking closely at these photos, it's clear that WWII carrier 'planes could be as weathered as a tank! Why do I find it so hard to make them this dirty? Why do models with this level of weathering look so strange to me? I think its the warbirds. Those renovated, rebuilt, polished polyurethane painted paragons of perfection that we see at airshows never show a sign of muck. Come to think of it, ANYTHING that goes to a show gets a good cleaning beforehand. I should know, I was that airman, working late on a Friday night trying to make a Vulcan look 'clean' for the weekend. (and failing, but you get my point.) And I'm accustomed to gas turbine engines which are so much cleaner than their piston-engined precursors , pistoning black oil all over themselves at the earliest opportunity.
There will be muck!
[But not airbrushed. I have a headache and a cough again so I'm declaring a moratorium on spraying until I build myself Spraybay Mk 3. ]
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There will also be touch-ups. This seems to be a carrier phenomenon. Constant repainting of flaking or damaged paint. Panels sealed against the weather on deck by the quick application of a thick coat of paint. We see it to this day.
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Here's something else that never seems to be out of fashion - little bits that should already be fitted to the bloody model! In this case, exhaust stubs that should have been glued down before I attached the cowling. Grumble-moan-gnashing-of-teeth. I might be able to slide them in later. (Probably push them too far in and have them rattling around inside forever... Grumble-moan...)
Actually, for all the grumbles, I'm delighted with this model so far. Just to finish would have been satisfying but I actually like it, which is a huge bonus for me.
