After the cockpit was completed, the fuselage was assembled. This went together beautifully, using putty only on the leading edged of the wings and the upper fuselage seams. The wing root join was near perfect.
I wanted to try out my AK Extreme Metal. After laying down the Alclad II Gloss Black Base I sprayed a layer of AK 479 Aluminum. After the base and metallic layers were in place, I sprayed down a coat of AK 11859 US Interior Yellow Green as the primer applied at the factory.
The concept was to lay down a metallic coat, then a green primer on top of the metal, as they would have actually done. Then, chip away the primer coat in areas of heavy use to expose the underlying metal. By using an enamel paint for the metallic layer, I didn't really need to use a chipping fluid since it's an easy thing to re-activate acrylic paint used as the primer layer with a moist brush. The results however were not satisfying to me. The AK479 Aluminum was too dark to give the metallic look I wanted.
Not having the patience to redo what I had just done, I opted instead to begin painting the underside of the wings first. Not advisable ... but I worked around it.
I began by painting the panel lines under the wings in Vallejo 71.057 Black. I then painted the underside of the starboard wing Vallejo Mecha Color 69.001 Pure White and the port side wing Vallejo Model Air 71.251 Nato Black.
After the underwings were completed, I returned to the fuselage and upper wings. I decided on Testor's Enamel Metallic Silver to provide a more "silvery", metallic finish for chipping. Despite my earlier comment I decided to use chipping fluid and sprayed two thin layers of Vallejo Chipping Fluid over the metallic undercoat. This proves to be a bad decision, which I will explain in later steps.
Again, I laid down the AK Gen 3 11859 US Interior Green over the metallic layer to provide the primer coat underneath the top paint for chipping. In an attempt to expose some indications of rust around the chipped areas, I used Vallejo 70.605 German Rust Brown surface primer for pre-shading panel lines.
For camouflage I used Vallejo Model Air 71.416 IJA Dark Beige in place of Matt Dark Earth, and AK Gen 3 11156 Camouflage Green instead of Matt Dark Green. The pattern was airbrushed freehand in order to keep a relatively soft edge.
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