As usual I began with the cockpit. The first thing I did was drilled out the holes on the frame that the pilot's seat attached to. I bought a set of Micro drills and they have proven to be a godsend, particularly when working on 1:72 scale aircraft.
Everything was then based with a coat of Stynylrez black acrylic primer and lightly gone over with AK Interactive's Gen3 AK11859 US Interior Yellow Green. These were light coats intended to allow the dark undercoat to create lowlights and shadows.
Several years ago, I purchased Academy's 1/72 scale P-51D Mustang from our local model store. The seat, stick, and radio equipment had already been assembled (but not painted) making the cockpit more than half complete when I got it. But I got it for 50% off so ... no complaints! It ended up on the buried in my stash and languished there. After a recent move, my stash was turned over and it made it's way to the surface.
This was a really nice kit. Love what Airfix is doing with their 1/72 scale kits these days. The kit came with some nicely engraved panel lines and the major rivets were provided, however I added additional riveting for the extra detail. I would be curious to see it without them though. Was pretty happy with the weathering and the decals went down like butter!
I built this for a group build on the Flory Models, modeling community forum. Turned out to be a great little kit. The only modifications I made were to swap out the kit canopy for an after-market vacuum formed canopy, and instead of using the provided invasion stripe decals, painted my own. Otherwise, as with most of my builds it was pretty much straight out of the box. In my opinion this is still one of the best builds I have ever completed.
