Thanks guys. Paint squirting has started but a couple of small things had to be done first.
Part A2 is a small fresh air scoop for the cockpit and Hasegawa has it incorrectly positioned in the instruction sheet.
The scoop is supposed to be much higher up toward the top like so:
Also, the instruction sheet has the step (part A1) going to the wrong hole. The hole shown on the instruction sheet is the fuel drain and the correct one for the step is much smaller and lower down.
As you can see above, I masked the canopy using my own home made masks. Not as good as an aftermarket set but they'll do. Next, the fuselage band area and spinner were sprayed white.
The fuselage band was then masked and Tamiya NATO Black was shot on the canopy. If you look close, you can see the fuel drain hole and the access step glued in much lower, contrary to the instructions.
And while I had the black in the cup, I flipped the model over and shot some preshading.
Next came the infamous Griggio Azzuro Chiaro 1 underside colour for which I used a recommended Tamiya mix of 14:XF-19 Sky Grey + 1:XF-27 Black Green from a post at STORMO. The poster apparently had the paint chip and came up with that mix so I don't know how I can dispute that.
So as you can see I got a fair amount done today. Thanks for your patience and for the looks and likes. More soon hopefully.