I decided to grab another set of planes that did not need much work, the early war scheme F4F Wildcat. I thought these would be pretty easy, as they did not have a lot of multi color detail and just needed some basic work.
Well…. Maybe not as easy as I thought. I noted that the main paint job had a heavy mottling from the factor applied wash and this would not due! No problem, this just required a light wet brush over the bottom and top to fit. Before I could get to that, I had to do my pin washes on the control surfaces, which went quick.
Then it was back to the base color. Once again, not as easy as I thought! The bottom went quick and I was able to match the color and get to work. The top surface blue gray was not so easy. For some reason, the first few colors I tried dried lighter than normal (maybe some weird interaction with the wash?). It took me a little while to find a color that would work (London Gray).
With that, I thought I was ready to move to the next step, but no! I noticed that my hand was not as ready as it should have been (getting older has all kinds of motor control benefits….). I also noticed that the stars were actually not centered on the blue roundel. So, I would be doing some multi color work after all… I started with hitting the red dots to brighten them up. I then did the same on the blue backgrounds, extending the circles to cover the anomalies. I finished with a little white in the center of the triangles that make up the stars. They did not come out perfect, but good enough for the tabletop.
Next, I worked on the blue contrast on the cockpit and added some black to the guns and engine opening. I then hit the spinner with some silver. The satin spray came after that and I finished up with some gloss coat on the cockpit. I added a couple of flight number decals to the side. This takes care of my early way Pacific US air support! Now I just need to find some Corsairs and P-38s for later war!
- Manteuffel