Thanks guys and thanks for stopping by.
The fuselage insignia were a little more complex. Since I had to suffer through this so do you - it's cathartic for me!
On June 28 1943, national insignia were specified that comprised of star and bars surrounded by an Insignia Red outline. This lasted only a month and a half when, following complaints from the Pacific Theatre that it could cause confusion with Japanese markings, the red outline was replaced with an Insignia Blue outline. A Technical Order 07-1-1 was issued on 24 September 1943 for units in the field to overpaint Insignia Red outlines with Insignia Blue. There seems to have been some variation in how this was done, either because some units got rid of the red border themselves before the official order was issued, or depending on paint and materials at hand. In a reference photo for this build, you can see the bars have an Insignia Blue outline but the red outline around the roundel has been roughly overpainted with something else lighter. My guess is that it is Sea Blue, with the new paint appearing slightly darker than the surrounding faded paint.
The first step was to position the 3 layers of masking correctly.
The centre mask for the roundel and bars was then removed and put aside for later before spraying Insignia White.
The star and bar masks were then applied and the roundel sprayed Insignia Blue
The outline mask was then removed and the outline around the bars sprayed Insignia Blue
The star and bars masking was removed. You can see the fine rivet detail that is retained by painting the insignia rather than using a decal.
The roundel and bars were masked using the removed mask from the first step and the outer mask peeled back and some Blu-tack blobs inserted to raise it slightly to give a feathered edge to the overpainted outline.
The overpainted outline was done in unlightened Sea Blue and then the edge further feathered using the 0.2mm nozzle in my airbrush together with a little mottling with a lightened shade.
Phew!! The photo isn't great but I think it looks OK. I've nicked the paint in a few spots getting the masks on and off - I'll touch that up later.
Just the identification numbers to go and I think I'm done with most of the painting...