Dropped into the LHS today to pick up some paint and took this picture of a Tamiya AS-18 rattle can next to my buys. Damned if I'm going to pay 13 bucks to paint a couple of little drop tanks so, at this point, I'm going to try to mix something up with XF-19 and XF-23 as noted in Geo's post above.
BTW, the brown there is XF-64 Red Brown, which is what Tamiya call up for the props and spinner - very different from Hull Red.
Yesterday, I shot a coat of Alclad Gloss Black primer to prep for my NMF.
The wings aren't quite as uniform as I'd like for a perfect aluminum finish but then, I don't think I want to get a perfect, shiny finish as 1) this aircraft as depicted will have been in service for 11 months and 2) the green mottles are going to hide much of the aluminum. At this point, I'm not really sure how to achieve an appropriate faded aluminum finish. I have several Alclad aluminums, including Dull Aluminum which, on first thought, would seem like the right call except that I remember not being too happy with this product as I recall it coming out quite grainy the last time I used it. I'm going to have to test a few samples to see what I end up going with.
Anyway, the gloss coat revealed a scratch on the bottom that I didn't know was there. I did slip with the scalpel when I cut the tape mask on the wheel well but I didn't even think that I touched the model and so it was a good thing that I applied this coat. I'm now going to need to fix that before moving on.
Thanks for looking in. It'll be a busy weekend so it may be a while before I get back. Talk soon.