Even though the weather forecast said it was gonna be nice and sunny weather today, it was nothing short of cr*p....so a nice day to get some work done on the interior.
On the previous pages there was some discussion as to what the appropriate colors for an early nightfighter could have been (either RLM02 or RLM66 as basic colors)....no final answer came of that (not to mention the fact that no pic's of the interior of Gildners plane exist to begin with), so I went with the 'what would work best for the model' approach and decided to use RLM02 as the basic interior color as RLM66 would make it a dark void on an already very dark coloured plane. I feel RLM02 gives a little more room to play with shades and picking out the wonderful details that come with this kit. So I sprayed an initial coat of RLM02-ish grey/green. I think it was some Vallejo modelair paint.
After a quick Vallejo gloss coat on the sidewalls, floor and other major strucural components, the interior parts where on the receiving end of the oil-paint treatment to get some shades and highlights going on these parts.
Then it was on to picking out all the details in some appropriate colors.
Instrument panel is all but done. I want to touch the gauges up with a little future to give them a glass-like look.
The interior is nowhere near being done. All the seats still need to be finished. Cannons and magazines need work as well as the MG out back and all the extra ammo that goes with it.
Then there's an insert part that goes in on top of this tub-like conststruction that holds yet more equipment and this typical kind of cage. I will leave this un assembled for a now because somewhere on zhe interweb I've found an in progress buildreport of this kit that shows this part may have some minor fit issues and needs to be thinned and widened a bit (likely by means of some small plastic strip on the sides or something) While that isn't exactly micro-surgery and in itself is a piece of cake really, it helps to keep that upper piece unassembled for now as all the small pars that go on it would probably be knocked off during the cutting/sanding of this part.
Sofar the instructions that come with this kit are a little confusing sometimes. Rather strange color call-outs suggesting I mix all kinds of Gunze paint together to get a color they already have right out of a jar
As far as parts and sub-assemblies go...this is also confusing sometimes...way too much instructions crammed on one page and sometimes flat out stupid instructions as to where to glue these sub-assemblies in place. To compare the two, this Cyberhobby kit has the building instructions spread over 6 pages, whereas and Eduard Weekend Edition of the G4 nightfighter is spread over 12 pages. By now I've turned to to keeping the Eduard instructions (I downloaded them from their website) at hand for certain color call-outs that make some more sense, and also to get a better clue as to where certain parts and sub-assemblies should go.
All in all, still a good ways off to closing the fuselage, but it's well underway and I feel the interior is coming along nicely. Apart from some sketchy and sometime flat out silly instructions and paint call-outs it's been a joy to work on this kit sofar.