Thanks for the info, Walt B (@luftwaffe-birdman). The newer limited run kits I have built have gotten very close to Tamiya or Hasegawa. The stuff coming out of the Ukraine is very good.

Well the rain here has kept me from yard work and limited what I can do with my car. I made some progress with the Ascender, and began work on the Black Bullet.

The XP-55 is assembled and ready for paint, I the canopy fit nicely but I found the masks were not cut correctly. The masks were two small for most of the sections, luckily the kit has two sets, one for the open and one for the closed canopy. The photo-etch cowl flaps fit very nicely and actually went on fairly easily.

I began the XP-56 first by cleaning the resin pieces from their casting blocks. They aren't extensive but take a little bit of effort. The resin is the older brittle yellow tan resin and the castings are marred a bit with imperfections, but once all together most, if not all, will not be visible. With some test fitting and a little sanding the fit of the cockpit into the fuselage is good and the fit of the fuselage halves to each other is excellent.

Nice work, my friend @luftwaffe-birdman!

Some nice progress today, I painted the Neutral Gray underside and the OD topside. I used a lightened Neutral Gray over a pre-shadowed panel lines and then went over the panel lines with straight Neutral Gray.

On the topside, I did basically the same thing but lightened the OD with yellow, and then did the panel lines with straight OD, then to blend everything took vehicle OD lightened with yellow diluted heavily to overspray and concentrate on the front and center of the panels. Again, I don't think my photographs capture all the subtle variations and how nice it really looks. I love how smooth the MrHobby, MrColor lacquers spray and how quickly they dry. I hope to paint the exhaust panels and clear tomorrow so I can put decals on during the week.

Very nice painting result, Walt @luftwaffe-birdman
Those shades do look perfect from the pictures.

George, @gblair, I find the labeling system for Mr Hobby/Mr Color paints and products somewhat confusing. It seems that if you tell someone you use Mr Hobby paint that means Aqueous/Acrylic, and Mr Color paint means Solvent, even though both have Mr Hobby on the label. Mr Hobby is the brand line for a whole string of model related products. To be clear I am using their Mr Color lacquer paint. It has a lot of pigment in it, and I can thin down to 50/50 no problem. It dries quickly even thinned that much. I was a Model Master Enamel paint person as long as I can remember, and with them gone I find these to be an excellent replacement. The other thing that is nice is that you can mix them with the Tamiya line of lacquers also if you are mixing your own colors, like I did for my B-24.

Wow, Walt @luftwaffe-birdman. Great double build. That Black Bullet XP-56 is a delightful kit. It’s a bit of a tail dragger and the nose gear is a bit weak and wobbly. I used brass tubing for the exhausts. I also built the CM XP-55 Ascender but have the Modelsvit kit in my stash so I will be following your build closely. Modelsvit once announced they were going to issue a Black Bullet. I wonder what came of that?