More parts of the kit had to be detailed or new ones scratched.
In the Revell kit only one weapons bay is foreseen for opening. I did both weapons bay doors from sheet.
Left are the kit parts, right the new ones primed with RLM 02..
The main landing gear doors are from the kit after doing some shape and structure corrections. Revell made the edges who face the fuselage center rounded in reality they have to be straight.
This cover for the main landing gear had to made new. Compare it with the kit part.
The door for the front wheel well. The kit door is a good rendering for the real part, The only thing I did was deepening the small holes on the outside. The first kit part I could use with just a tiny modification, "Hallelujah"!.
The inner covers for the jet engine were only marginal modified just erasing the false structures and adding new ones With strips. The rivets are made with my home made tool again.
The parts after painting:
The nose cone with all inner details. The next part which is ready for installing.
Next was painting the sub assemblies. A light gray enamel primer coat was followed by black preshading. Than I sprayed the base camouflage colors with acrylics. This mixes were unlighted for more shading. I hope I got a slightly weathered effect. Where the upper colors meet the RLM 76 I used pending masking to get softer color edges.
Before decaling I sprayed a sealing coat of future. For down toning the decals and blending them in with the model I brush painted a very light coat of the appropriate camouflage color on to them. Than came Future again, slight sanding and more Future. I repeated this several times to to make the borders of the decals invisible. I weathered the kit with tube watercolors and finally sealed it with an appropriate mix of Future and Tamiya flat base.
Here some impressions:
Some more:
The completed empennage: