Thanks guys.
Today's update;
The plane is given a few coats of vallejo matt varnish to kill the shine, then the canopy is masked for painting.
i ended up doing the front by hand, as it just becomes a bother to cut tiny pieces of tape.
next, after the canopy is painted and has dried, its attached with elmer's white glue which takes a day to set up properly but dries invisable and is extremly strong.
Already the glue has started to dry and can't be seen.
A closeup shows little eino in his seat, and teh canopy has come out pretty well.
After this has dried the entire plane is given a careful wash to bring out details, and some weathering with exhasut and machine gun smoke trails added, and set aside to dry.
All that was left at this point was to attach the pre painted (by me) landing gear and drop tank, but the tank it turns out was the worst engineered part of the kit, and had huge gaps that needed putty! All of this was attached as was the antenna (also pre painted) and set aside to dry.
All that is left now is to take and post the finished shots!