Ok... let's keep going!
The preshading took lots of time due to the amount of surface detail that the Tamiya kit depicts. One thing I like about pre-shading is the ability to dial the effect back as far as you wish when the final colors are applied. For this kit, I am going to try and leave the panel effects on the more prominent side due to (1) the heavy wear/tear that these aircraft experienced and (2) the fact that this plane is virtually covered in insignias, stencils, and personal markings.
Neutral Gray (Tamiya XF53) is applied to the undersides. I am fighting my natural tendency to reduce the panel effects to the point of subtlety because I believe the effect will be greatly reduced once all of the decals go on.
I wanted to portray a fairly hard demarcation between the olive drab upper surfaces and the gray undersides so I utilized paper masks which are elevated slightly off the surface using bits of BluTack. After a few unsuccessful attempts at hand sketched masks, I resorted to scanning and enlarging the painting guide that comes with the Rising Decal set.
The Olive Drab is a 50/50 mixture of Tamiya XF62 and Gunze Sangyo H052. It's very important to have adequate lighting when painting. I spray indoors and will constantly shift my position in relation to the lighting to check my work from different lighting perspectives. Ideally, I will take the model outside and have a look. Naturally, there is some overspray and other mishaps that need to be corrected.
Once the olive drab has a chance to dry, we can start the chipping process. Ok... I can see a mixture of chromate green and aluminum as the chipping gets underway... seems to be working.
As the chipping progressed, I noticed some inconsistencies in terms of chipping behavior. Some areas of olive drab were lifted VERY gradually as I worked a wet brush gently over the area... almost a grain by grain posterizing effect. But others lifted off in fairly large bits and pieces. I was very careful to go very SLOWLY... it's almost impossible to retract your steps once you've gone this far.
Chipping done on the other side. I will augment the hairspray chipping with some brush applied silver paint but it will be very light.
The chipping process was very involved and time consuming since I went at it so slow and deliberately, panel by panel. Once the primary chipping was done, I switched gears and masked the yellow ID stripes on the wings and tail.
A yellow stripe on the tail went a little too far onto the rudder... should be easy to fix.
The red nose ring is painted next. You can see that the tail stripe has been corrected.
Bit by bit, the masking comes off. I can finally take a look at how the engine looks housed in the cowling.
After a bit of brush applied paint chipping, the model will be clear coated in advance of decaling.