Thanks chaps. Mottling is now finished and a matte coat has been sprayed on. First, a few small splatters where brushed off with a small brush loaded with IPA and a few touch-ups were done here and there to even out the bare metal gaps a bit. I tried to follow as best I could the patterns seen on all the available pics and am fairly happy with how this all turned out.
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I ended up painting the gun patches a dark reddish brown as I think there is a distinction in the pics between the red star marks and what looks to be a slightly darker patch. I gave the benefit of the doubt to the colourized pic which shows a brownish patch so that's what I did. The gun muzzle still needs to be picked out in black.
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The venturi was hollowed out at the flared end and glued in place:
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I've now brushed on a patch of Future where the victory tally decal goes below the port side of the canopy and will wait a day before applying that decal. In the meantime, I've glued on the undercarriage and was disappointed to see that the flat marks on the tires don't end up where I'd like them to be so I'll need to do something about that. More on that later but that's all for today.