Thanks all and onwards we go.
I ended up opting for some spare drop tanks from my old Tamiya P-47M kit as these had nicer details on them. They had been painted in aluminum Alclad already and so it was an easy matter to shoot the camo colours on and scratch them up a bit. I used a darker OD for the uppers since these would not have seen the same amount of fading as the aircraft itself. The stencil decals were scrounged from my spares.
The mirrors have been finished but the effect is so-so. The areas around the polished sections received some glossy dark OD for the reason mentioned earlier. Note also that I added silver dots at the cowl fastener locations.
The finished exhaust stains:
The drop tanks have been hung in place. I elected not to go with the asymmetric load out of one tank and one bomb as this would more likely have been used in 1944 after the 1st FG moved to Italy.
At the cockpit, I cut the roll-up side windows, painted and decaled them and stuck them into place. I made the one on the starboard side stick out a little more just cuz. I also enhanced the crash pad and added the red emergency hood release handle which I made from lead wire.
At the pointy end, the guns have been installed. The cannon was replaced with bass rod and the MGs are the kit parts. If you build this kit, the instructions for these parts are very unclear and seem to mix up the gun barrel numbers so check your references and don't go by the instructions. The barrels have yet to be painted.
All that's left to do now is to modify the canopy hood and glue it into place, add the pitot tube and the props and do some finishing touches. Thanks again for following.