Thanks Wayne!
Here's the pics which should have been posted yesterday! All of these were taken as the work was being done, so none of the areas were finished at the time.
PIC 1. The starboard wing gun patches, painted, torn and stained. Still a little bit of work to be done here. Note that the patches are deliberately uneven, simulating a quick 'field application'.
PIC 2. The cannon port patches, at the same stage. These have yet to be raggedly trimmed, and a little more staining added in grey.
PIC 3. The observers seat has had the harness added from metal foil and a sliver of sprue for the fastening lugs box, and have been painted in the basic colour. The adjustment buckles have yet to be made and added, and the detail painting completed. The right side lap strap will be hanging down, as shown, when the seat is fitted to the swivel mount.
PIC 4. The cockpit canopy hatch has had the sun blind added from folded decal covering tissue, and the 'wire' runners made from stretched sprue, with the locking lugs also from sprue, one of which decided to go walkabout when the pic was taken!
The outer frame needs retouching, and a 'hinge' will be added to the starboard lower frame, with the hatch posed in the open position on the completed model. The locking bar and release handle have been added to the main canopy upper frame, fabricated from various sizes of stretched sprue, and will be shown when the model is finished.
Now it's time for all the delicate antennas, lamps etc to be made and fitted, including some of the kit provided radar wing antennas. But first, in order to minimize handling, some work will be done in making a base, a 'ground crew' figure, the removed cowlings and some tools etc, so that the model can be placed in position, the final small parts attched, and photographed.
After that, it's a question of where to put the bl**dy thing!!!