Thanks so much for the comments guys! Greatly appreciated!
The Hien build continues. Now that the base camo colors have been painted, I can start addressing some of the more colorful aspects of Teruhiko Kobayshi's colorful Hien #5262 so we're going to be doing a whole lot of masking. Before I do any masking, the model was first given a light clear coat (Alclad Aqua Gloss). The green/brown camo color is very flat and susceptible to scratching so a little bit of gloss will help protect it. The first masking job will be the longitudinal blue and white stripe. The stripe was outlined using the flexible white Tamiya tape.
A white base was sprayed first. The blue was a mix of Tamiya Blue and Sky Blue. I added the sky blue just to give some opacity to the Blue... on its own, the Blue is quite clear and can be difficult to establish a consistent coat.
After the blue was allowed to dry for a few hours, I masked off a narrower stripe in the middle using thin strips of Tamiya yellow tape and the white was sprayed on.
Using leftover bits of white and yellow tape, I masked off the white combat stripe around the rear fuselage and painted it white.
At the front, I mixed a combination of Tamiya Black and Blue for the anti-glare panel.
The yellow on the leading edges was a mix of Tamiya Yellow with a dash of Orange. The inserts for the wing cannon were stuck in place for painting but haven't been glued in yet.
Now for the red tail. This mask called for some delicate scalloping around the rudder and stabilizer. I always use a white base when spraying primary colors like red, yellow and blue.
Although I'm not using the decals, I used the hinomarus on the Lifelike decal sheet to mix my red. This was Tamiya Red plus a little bit of Orange.
And here is the tail with the masks removed. Just a touch of overspray at the base of the port stabilizer that needs a touch-up but otherwise it came out ok. Lookit all the tape debris...
Time to pause and reflect and what we've accomplished so far.
Still lots of stuff to do... the hinomarus and the decaling. I also have to mask off the wheel wells and paint them. Stay tuned!