Thanks George (@gblair), Spiros (@fiveten), and John (@johnb). I got a little further on the cockpits / pilots. The pilots are painted and installed in their seats along with some Tamiya masking tape harnesses. I'll be closing up the fuselages shortly.

However, I also have to matte coat my USS San Francisco tonight, so I will probably do that first.

Thanks George (@gblair). I'm am getting more confident with painting figures, although, I need to try my abilities on something larger than 1/72 or 1/48 to see if I can really paint figures or if I am just doing some wishful thinking! 🙂

Thanks John (@johnb). I've found that when doing these Tamiya tape harnesses that it works best to ensure one end is CA glued securely before trying to position the remainder of the harness.

Hi Carl (@clipper): I have to admit that figures have always fascinated me. They bring another level to our models. I found a free print file for a Conquistador that I really like, and enlarged it from 1/35 to 1/16. That may be large enough for me to make an attempt to paint it.

I am working my way through improving the surface detail on the fuselages. I just couldn't leave the raised detail as it was pretty crude. To avoid problems, I am re-scribing one fuselage at a time. My new articulating Tablet arm has been real handy in this regard allowing me to have the reference drawings right at viewing height.

The lower movable vent on the fuselage is molded closed , so I opened it up. I'll have to repeat this on the other fuselage when I get to it.

Thanks Greg (@gkittinger). I will try this method of pilot post op work next time. I am still trying to perfect my figure painting technique. Part of my challenge with this is I tend to do 1/72 and 1/48 pilots mostly and most of the time (so far) they have been plastic molded kit versions or plastic molded aftermarket figures that I've had to butcher to make them fit. So one of my goals is to not only get better at painting (with associated highlighting), but also get better at improving the figures, either through added materials (i.e.putties or plastic bits or PE), or via carving / filing.

To give you some idea of what I've dealt with so far, the best figures I've worked with were 1/48 ICM plastic standing figures, cut into pieces and reassembled to be seated figures. Then tried to repair all the damage. Painting that was fair. I had a 1/72 resin pilot figure from PJ Productions once, but the detail on it was only so so, thereby not giving me any real opportunities to paint a better molded figure.

Funny thing, near future figures for me to do are approximately eighty 1/350 scale US Navy sailors for my USS San Francisco. Needless to say, there won't be a lot of detail painting on those! 🙂

Some day I'll get the right blend of a nicely detailed figure in a scale large enough to go the extra distance. In the meantime, I will practice where I can on the figures I have to work with at the moment.

Thanks again for sharing the shading and highlighting technique.

Thanks John (@johnb).