Well y'all, the attempts to paint on the noseart have all ended badly. I cannot apply the paint evenly or at this small a size, no matter how small the utensil. I even attempted painting the area white, covering it with OD and then using my smallest drill bit to "reveal" the noseart in white below. No dice, the drill bit scraped off all layers of paint and varnish simultaneously and left thick films around the outlines. It was also very hard to control, as the wing and engine nacelle block me from maintaining my normal drawing pose. To clarify, I was holding the very thin and long drillbit between my fingers, not drilling it. I have since completely removed all layers of paint and varnish from the area. I will give it one last shot with just one coat of OD and then scratching with the drill bit to "write" the noseart with the clear light gray plastic underneath, which might be able to pass for badly weathered white paint.
If this fails, I have a decision to make. I've stated before that the only other aircraft I'd be interested in portraying would be the Ruptured Duck. Kitsworld includes the iconic (but incorrect) Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo noseart as well as the rendition by Corporal Lovelace, who drew the original. There are no photos showing the Duck's noseart. I personally prefer the rendition Lawson commissioned of the noseart (which isn't included in the Kitsworld offering but is in some 1/48 offerings and is also the one used for 2001's Pearl Harbor), but Lovelace's is at least 50% as likely to be correct. One man drew it, the other (and his wife) saw it very often for several months. As an artist myself I both think I'd more accurate if trying replicate my own artstyle than anyone else, but I also doubt I'd be able to replicate something I drew decades ago without reference, especially as my own artstyle has changed wildly in the past couple of years alone. The Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum has opted to use Lovelace's artwork, and their B-25's livery is very accurate, being the only aircraft I'm aware off to have the correct demarcation line, so that is also a point in favor of Lovelace. This would however mean using 3 more of Kitsworld's decals, which feels a bit like tempting fate at this point, and would doubtlessly result in the destruction of the previously applied Whirling Dervish serial number decals.
So what's the decision? Well, I can either remove the Dervish's serials and repaint it as the Duck (photos I have of its right side seem to show the same NM frames in the cockpit so no repainting necessary anywhere else on the plane)... or I can keep it as the Dervish with no noseart.
There are no photos of the Dervish that show its noseart, and I haven't been able to find any statements anywhere from the crew about what artwork, if any, was on the aircraft. I do recall reading somewhere a description of the naming of the airplane, but can't remember where.
A statement by a crewmember of the airplane (I think Thomas C. Griffin, as Rossland mentions having met him later in the post) refers to it by name as well, but whether anything at all was painted on the airplane is not mentioned. Lawson mentions an aircraft named Whirling Dervish in TSOT, but doesn't give further details.
There's also this passage in John Mollison's website:
And about the nose art, Dick Cole (sole surviving Doolittle Raider) said that any artwork done on the Raider's B-25s was done with chalk and washed off during the rainy gale on 18 April, 1942. We'll never know for certain about the nose art on #15.
So, the noseart could have been added to the plane or not, it could look like the design everyone seems to agree is correct or not (people agree on the noseart for TNT but the consensus is very unlikely to be correct), and it could have been washed off by rain (though I don't recall nor can I tell from the footage if it was raining during the windy launch or not, and he could be referring to the storm most of the Raiders flew through to get to China, meaning it's not very relevant to my "ready to launch" model).