Thanks, Carl (@clipper) and Spiros (@fiveten). Things are moving now. I like painting the models, so everything up till now is prep. Tamiya and AK Real Colors are my "go to" paints, but I have noticed the online hobby stores seem to be out of a lot of the Real Colors. No one locally carries them. I hope they aren't phasing them out. I always seem to lose or break something in every build that can't be replaced. In this build, I have a lot of spare parts, but today I lost a tiny vent, which was the one part that there were no spares. It figures, right?

Thanks, John (@johnb). I may make one more try in the carpet, but this is a really tiny part, so I am not sure there is any chance to find it. Tail wheels rarely survive, especially in this scale.

Looks good George (@gblair). The Hudson looks weird with that clear nose. The painted nose one gives some idea of what we can expect. Looking forward to seeing more.

Excellent job so far, my friend @gblair! Indeed, it is pretty interesting to see the different cowling arrangements between variants of the same type (do I hear the A-20/Boston/Havoc/P-70 family calling?). Great that all elements are included in the kit - MPM usually do this. Looking forward to your next steps!

Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten) and John (@johnb). It is interesting the variations you see within a given airplane. I was thinking about the variations in more recent planes like the F-16. I am glad the parts were available in the kits.

What's interesting about variants is that to the average viewer of any particular plane, the plane often appears to be "Mustang" or an "F-16". Not a particular variant of that plane. When you start researching them, you find out all kinds of neat details. Oftentimes, the differences are internal only, but these internal differences can have a dramatic effect on the plane. For example, an upgrade to the basic powerplant that adds several hundred horsepower can turn something that was a slug into something much more sprightly!

I wanted to get the bottom of the plane completely painted today so I could move on to the camo on top. I am now zeroing in on the specifics of paint and decals. This plane is painted in the standard camo for an early model Hudson: dark earth and dark green on top, with the bottom in natural metal covered with aluminum paint. I painted the bottom of the plane with Humbrol Aluminum from a spray can. It gives a smooth finish with a thin layer of paint. I went over the paint with a 1000 grit sanding stick, then sprayed on some panel lines using very diluted (80% thinner) Vallejo Jet Exhaust Metal Color. I then used some Dull Aluminum from Vallejo to highlight the flaps, ailerons, and elevators. When everything was dry, I freehanded a stencil for the demarcation between the lower and upper colors. I will finish the masking tomorrow and start on the upper camo.

I discovered that I don't have the correct decals to cobble together the codes for this plane. I have some medium gray codes that are scale 24" in height, but the ones on this plane are about 36". I think I have all the decals I need for the other two models, but I will need to figure out the markings for this one. I might be able to use my wife's die cut machine to create stencils for the codes, but I will need to see if I can get acceptable stencils for something this small. I will work on that tomorrow also. One step at a time. As Tom (@tcinla) has reminded me before: "How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

8 attached images. Click to enlarge.