The old Italeri kit contains a few parts only, but assembly took me some 15 years. Recently I'm trying to finish all abandoned kits. In this case I rescribed all panel lines, cut moving surfacers, made a new cockpit layout. The weapon bay stay closed, cause is pure fantasy (the kit comes from 1991!). I decided to make painting in a little "brave" manner cause aircraft looks like a winged brick
It's just black basing technique. With all black primed model I can create colour variations by applying several layers of heavy thinned paint. It works better on large surfaces than simple dark preshading along the panel lines.
I agree, very nicely done.
I saw a 'Raptor' for the first time, at Duxford, two weeks ago, and the cockpit puzzled me slightly - couldn't see the pilot !