Airfix Spitfire MkIa - Part V

Another weekend and couple of hours to spend on the project. Things are moving along at speedy pace. This morning it was time to paint underside of the Spitfire with that eggshell color I always find so fascinating. How the heck did they come up with that specific shade?! Anyway... Until now I stuck to Lifecolor paints, but now, for very first time, I used Humbrol's 'newish' acrylics for my painting. It's far too early to say something about the entire range, but based on this limited experience, I must say that I have mixed feelings about that specific color. Despite the fact that I diluted it in one to one proportions with brand's own thinner, atomization of the paint was far worse than when I worked with Lifecolor. Also, the painted surface is  porous when compared with Lifecolor, Vallejo or Tamiya. It would be a shame if things don't work out between Humbrol's acrylics and me, since it' the color brand that I easiest for me to get hold of locally.

As for the paint job... things did actually work out pretty fine and there is a clearly visible result of preshading I did in previous step. Couple of thin coats provided excellent coverage of raised areas and the black I applied before shone through and gave that nice shading effect near the recesses.

Next I added some white to the previously existing mix of eggshell and white and proceeded with the highlights. From everything I read on this technique is supposed to be used subtly - it's important not to overdo with the white paint nor with spraying. In this case however, I was perhaps a bit too subtle, since I can barely see any difference in shades now that the paint has dried.

I've decided it would be safest to let the paint cure over the night (don't want to lift it of with the masking tape when I'll be painting the camouflage), so I proceeded on to all the details that are still not finished. In my younger years I didn't bother with masking the cockpit. Instead I used to paint the panels with brush and scratch off any mistakes with a toothpick. It worked OK, but not more than that. So now I've spent some 45 minutes on the task of properly masking the cockpit - what a tedious job! I already dread needing to do the same with Me 110 cockpit.

Once the tape was in place, it was time to do some airbrushing again. First a coat of interior green, followed by same dark green color used for camouflage of upper surfaces. The idea is to have the cockpit color visible on the inside and dark green on the upper surface of the cockpit.It must be a sign of my maturity (a personality trait often questioned by my environment :-) that I still haven't ripped the masking tape off, so all you get for now is a picture of cockpit in completely over-sprayed condition.