Excellent wash results, my friend @gblair!

I spent my modeling time today getting the last of the small bits on. The only things still off of the model are the sliding canopy and the antenna. They will be the very last to go.

I spent the rest of my time weathering the plane using artist oils. I spent a lot of time trying to replicate the things I have seen in the photos of the planes in this squadron. I always try to establish an overall goal or guide for my weathering. This helps me stay focused on what I want to achieve and hopefully stop before I go too far. In the pictures of the squadron airplanes, you usually see planes that are neat and well cared for. The invasion stripes are neatly applied, but with a few bobbles if you look carefully. Although the paint looks well cared for, these were old planes that had been flown in harsh conditions, so there is a lot of weathering visible. In one of the photos, the upper wings, especially near the wing root, had a collection of dirty and oily footprints. I wanted to try to represent that.

Tomorrow I hope to finish completely and take some photos of the finished plane. If that gets done, then hopefully the Headline article and a trip into the display cabinet.

Cheers everyone.

9 attached images. Click to enlarge.

Thanks, Eric (@eb801). The "shoe prints" were really easy to do.

Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten).

Looks awesome!

Happy little accidents. That's what artist Bob Ross used to call accidents that happen when painting that turn out to be a good thing. Well, had one of those today. I only had two things left to do. I had the sliding portion of the canopy to add, and then add the antenna post along with the antenna wire. I got out the stretchy stuff to add the antenna wire, then checked the instructions to see where it would attach on the tail. Not depicted in the instruction. And I thought Eduard made good instructions. So, I started looking at the photos I had of this plane. No antenna wire in these, either. I suppose the antenna wire could be invisible in the old photos, but a couple of them are very close to antenna post, and no wire is visible. Hmmmm. So, after a little searching online, I discovered that many Spitfire Mk. Vs did not have a wire antenna. It seems that planes equipped with a VHF radio did not need the wire antenna because the new technology made it possible to put the antenna in a hollowed-out portion of the vertical antenna post. So, apparently starting with the Spitfire Mk. V, planes equipped with a VHF radio did not have a wire antenna. Just to keep matters confusing, planes that used a UHF radio still needed a wire antenna. So, the happy little accident was that I was planning to glue the stretchy stuff to the antenna post, and then go find out where the other end went on the tail. For some reason, I decided to wait. That's the accident. If I had glued stuff to the post, I would have had to sand and repaint it. Yeah! My karma is in sync with the universe again.

And with that happy little accident, the plane is done. Thanks to all of you who followed along and offered great advice and encouragement. Cheers.

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.

An excellent finish, George @gblair
Great headline article.