Thanks guys! Those wheel wells ARE super-detailed aren't they? I was a bit overwhelmed just looking at them after that first coat of gray... where the heck do I start??? So they sat for a few days while I mustered up the courage to start picking out the details. What really helped was the purchase of some new paint brushes. My selection of usable paint brushes was ashamedly piss poor. My two detail brushes were so old and balding that I was down to literally 2-3 working bristles on em. With such few bristles, the paint would dry before I could get the brush from the paint to the model! I don't know how I managed like that for so long but I finally picked up a cheap little set of three fine brushes and it's like I've discovered brush painting for the first time! So I used that little momentum to finish up the painting in the cockpit and the wheel wells.
What seals the deal on the wheel wells is the pastel wash. I will often apply my wash straight onto paint if I've given it enough time to cure but I took the extra step of sealing my paint with a clear gloss coat before I applied my wash to the wells. A good pastel wash will do a couple of things: (1) highlight the detail and (2) help mask painting imperfections. So the wash here really helped complete the look of the wells.
I was away for the weekend but will hopefully jump back onto the Flogger build soon!