Gracia amigos! It's time to paint the black tulip on the nose of this G-10. I have a set of Montex masks. It looks like they were designed to be used prior to the camo painting. And I was unsure as to how they would fit on the AMUR Reaver nose piece. So... I decided to mask it manually. They are just straight lines so it should be pretty straightforward.
First, I wrapped a piece of flexible white Tamiya tape around the nose to mark where the tulip points would end. This would ensure some consistency in the masking. Using the kit instructions as a guide, I marked the tulip points on the tape.
Again, using the kit instructions as a guide, I place thin strips of yellow Tamiya tape. I can use the panel line closest to the end of the nose as a reference line for the inner points of the tulip.
The tulip is masked one triangle at a time. I didn't care if the tulip triangles were identical in shape but I tried to keep everything symmetrical.
After the outer edges of the tulip are masked, you have two choices on how to paint it. You can either put on the white first and mask the white edges using uniformly thin strips of paint butted up against the first tulip mask. I thought it'd be easier to do the opposite, which is to paint the black first and then mask off the black areas. So the black is sprayed first. I tried to keep the spray pattern towards the nose to avoid a black edge to the white trim.
After the black paint is allowed to dry, I masked off the white trim areas. This was a bit trickier than first assumed as the black paint made it difficult to see the edges of the mask demarcation.
The white is sprayed in the opposite direction as the black, towards the tail. I wanted to "force" the paint into the corners of the mask, again, to avoid a black edge.
The masking is removed to reveal the lovely tulip markings... plus some nasty paint lifting!
The starboard side is not so bad.
I'll let that dry before I attempt to repair the paint lift. Since the repair areas are so small, I can just use small strips of yellow Tamiya tape. I de-tack the tape as much as possible to reduce the possibility of further damage.
Here is the tulip after corrections have been made. There is a slight remnant of black edging to the white trim but given the propensity of this area to be damaged by masking, I think I'll leave it alone.