Thanks Hugh.
Tonight was devoted to correcting the light blue patch around the fuselage star and bar. The reference pics I have show the patch to almost always sweep completely around the insignia. Though there are no full-on shots of this area for Fireball, the detail below, with arrows, shows a definite attempt to clear the insignia with the light blue.
So here's the situation I had on the model after applying the decal. Note the lower portion of the circle intersecting and disappearing into the dark blue camo and the upper circle and right bar just touching the blue.
On the right side, I hadn't placed the decal yet, so I cut a template of the insignia and stuck it on to guide my new demarcation line.
To rectify the situation around the decal, I cut some masks and reduced the tack significantly so that they would not damage the decal on removal.
Then it was a matter of carefully spraying the light blue, followed spraying the dark blue to lower demarcation with the NMF and reshaping the area at the 10 o'clock position of the star to more resemble the detail in the above picture. The picture below shows this area finished and recoated with Future. Much better now.
The right side was similarly done and I will now wait a day to resume the decaling in these areas. In the meantime, I had already applied the large insignias on the bottom surfaces. The Aeromaster decal sheet makes a point of noting the unusual application of the oversize stars and bars on the bottom of BOTH wings for the 56th FG aircraft depicted on their sheet and I took their word for it since they quote seven or eight references. The Tamiya instructions show just the one for its 56th FG profile. Here's how that turned out. Hope it's correct?
Also, the nose art turned out well, though the orange ball is slightly transparent and shows the demarcation of the red and blue behind the decal. This one had me worried at first as it was quite rippled on application as it tried to fit itself around the curved surface. However, two applications of Solvaset did the trick and it sat down nicely.
I hope to get some more done tomorrow night and, if so, will post some more pics then. Thanks for continuing to follow this build and, for those who know best, do let me know if the second insignia on the lower wing is bogus.