September 23 2009 | Oil painting...

So i waited for one full night removed the excesses and painted some highlights..
Oh dear, the turpentine turned the thing in a ultra glossy base and whatever the light I was working on, either day or artificial, everything was reverberating so much i had some deep troubles ending the job!
So maybe I should have use some white spirit instead, I dunno..
Not really sure the trick was that good, but then I set up only spending 2 hours on the painting
In the end I got this:

You may notice a big highlight zone on the right foot!

September 25 2009 | Painting the 2 halves

First painting the 2 halves, Valejo gunmetal for the guns, a mix between greens and blacks for the rest. Nothing too well done either..

September 25 2009 | Fitting the gunner in the ball turret

.. because in the end what will we be able to see from the interior?

September 25 2009 | Closing the 2 halves of the ball turret

Time to close the 2 halves and trim and sand etc..

September 25 2009 | Trapdoors and pipes

You may notice I had the round opening PE part ready on the glamour undercoated pics.
I managed not to loose it which is pretty impressive by my standards.. For the rest it was just a matter of filling with white Squadron putty which is why you can't see much joint.

The ball turret is getting its complement of trapdoors (lead foil) and pipe plugs..

September 25 2009 | Masking tape

What a mess!! that was not easy to fill the turret with masking tape! I had to litterary *fill* the whole thing as I don't want my oh so finely painted pilot ending up looking like a silvery space adventurer.

September 27 2009 | Good paints!

you won't see me that often completely endorse some products but then amongst the vast quantity of crap that is offered to us modellers, some real gems like those paints:

September 27 2009 | Airbrushing the plane parts

okay, those are rather expensive and I have been buying them over some time but they do the trick handsomely. They airbrushed themselves with ease, and even better, you can sort of polish them with either a brush or some soft cloth and the details just pop out!
of particular praise is the silver tint as I never ever see any paint looking like that. you just paint *silver* not paint you see..
But then it's laquer, so they rather stink and you can't dilute them with ease you have to buy some special thinner, oh well. And then i had some extra surprises with them that I didn't find documented!
more on the later.
The dark metal tint is applied where the sun don't shine (literary)