Dude !
You're rocking it. This era of aircraft is my favorite of all time. The Yellow Wings schemes were just so vivid and colorful... Good call on ditching the decals. It's more work, but you will be glad that you went this route.

This looks fantastic... Now I'm going to go look at my Hasegawa 1/32 scale kits that are big brothers to yours. I have two of them, and two of the 1/48 scale Hobby Craft kits like yours. This is such a cool plane...you can't settle for just one.

Who knows ? We might eventually just have to do a "Yellow Wings" Group Build sometime in the future...

Ditto on Erik's comments. Masking and painting these markings isn't a job for the timid, but the results speak for themselves. Decals might have made things easier, but I think putting the long decal stripes and other large decals on this model might have also been difficult.

Looking good Jim. Regarding paints, when I got back into modelling I decided to stay away from the enamels and go with Acrylics. I'm currently using Vallejo and haven't had any real issues.

@jamesb I initially tried Vallejo since they were readily available at Hobby Lobby. The primer and paint peeled off in sheets. lol, meh (I know it's something I did or didn't do). The P-26 is slowly getting there. I tried to use the Hobby Craft elevator scallops...because I didn't learn from the fuse decals 🙂 ...and it went about as well as the others. So, I bit the bullet and ordered the Yellow-Wings decals. They came today so I put the few on, mostly the tiny stencils. Night and Day. I'm still going with Yellow 7 since I have some good reference photos of the actual airplane. The scallops are pretty close to the original but they go on like warm butter so I'm not going to be picky. The wheel spats are going together with a liberal amount of filler to the front seam and the flying wire fairings. The other fiddly bits like the cockpit door, crank case cover, rudder and elevator are all primed and painted. The rest of the fuselage decals should be done tomorrow and I can concentrate on the gear and the cowling. While I was waiting for the decals to show up I widened the white fuselage scallops to match the period photo, it just didn't look right, too skinny. In looking at the reference photos I noticed the blue from the rudder flag extends on to the vertical stab...so while I was waiting for the decals, I masked it off and sprayed the thin stripe. What's the old saying, the last 10% takes 90% of the time? 🙂

6 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Jim @jimh, I'd be willing to bet you had the same problem I had with my recent efforts working on an OLD Modelcraft mold. I sprayed the Vallejo Grey primer over it and a few Tamiya subjects. I started working on the Modelcraft plane and had the same problem, albeit it was within 24 hours. I've run some test pulls with tape on the Tamiya molds (after a week) and did not have any adverse affects. After reading a few different builds I believe the problem is the older plastics require an enamel based primer or a 'Specialized' Primer. Simoniz Acrylic Primer (a car spray-primer intended for plastic) or Rust-Oleum Plastic Primer appear to be the ticket. I purchased the later brand and will be testing out on another Airfix project that is not what is the norm in their injection molding kits.

Just food for thought.

Jim, @jimh

Your P-26 has come a long way since the last time I checked in. You have definitely made some great progress. I especially like how the stabilizer scallops and rudder striping has turned out. The engine looks like it's a little jewel too. Your on the home stretch with the last 90 percent to go... 🙂

Looks fantastic, and it will look even better parked next to your F2G.

James, @jamesb
Thanks for posting what you said about the primer. I have experienced problems like that in the past with an old AMT kit. I made the mistake of not priming it, and when I removed the masking, most of the underlying paint came up with the tape.

I will definitely keep this little trick in mind for the next time I spray acrylics. This is the main reason I like my old school enamels. I've never had a problem with them.