mine so far...

[pastafarian]

First up is the revell 1/48 p-51d. I'm building this one as a Cavalier. Radio has been cut out and a second seat added from the spares bin. The tip tanks are from a p-61.

Going to add a couple of bombs and paint it up as a South American bird. I'm wanting to do 3 or 4 color camo. I'm not sure the sea foam green is going to work as a base though. I might leave a smidge of it and use olive drab as the main green.

next up is a 1/72 monogram f-82. It doesn't count for the build since it was build before the 1st, just sitting on the shelf waiting for paint. Going to chip it up pretty bad, fade the paint, and add some grime.

Also in the que is a tamiya f-51d that will be in Guatemalan markings.

John

[pastafarian]

Ok, haven't posted too much in progress (these all build basically the same anyway :P) but here's where we are so far:

FAU bird is a whatif Revell kit.

FAG bird is the Tamiya F-51D.

and the F-82 is a 1/72 Revell kit.

The two Revell kits have been experiments in dealing with raised panel lines. Not sure if it shows so great in the pics, but in person I sorta like it. Just do the regular paint scheme and then lightly sand over the panel lines. Since these are both dark paint jobs, I went down to the plastic on the lines to get some decent contrast. If you're doing a light paint scheme, you'd preshade black, paint up the aircraft and then very lightly sand the panel lines so that you take off the top coat and leave the black on the panel lines (saw this in FSM last month and it seems to work).

Did most of the decaling last night while watching Ghandi, which I thought was a little ironic.

Still to do: put on the second layer decal on the tail of the FAU mustang, matte coat the FAU and F-82 (should I shoot a second gloss coat over the NMF bird?), take care of engine exhaust pipes, and then see about weathering (maybe just a super thin coat of white on the painted birds to lighten the upper surfaces).

John

[JasonW]

Those are looking pretty goos so far John. Where did you get the FAG and FAU markings from? I was thinking of doing a couple of South American Mustangs too. I think I have a Colorado Decals sheet that might have FAG markings for some Mustangs. I recently bought a couple of Aztec decal sheets for Latin American Mustangs that has the FAU markings as well as El Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, Cuban, Dominican Republic and Costa Rican Mustangs, but no FAG markings.

[pastafarian]

Thanks Jason,

They're all from an aztec sheet I got a while back. It's the Latin Eagles IV sheet.

http://www.aztecmodels.com/azt_prin.htm

I know it is probably going to sound weird, but their decals are almost too thin! :) They snuggle down great, but you've got to be really careful with them.

If you end up not using the Cuban markings, let me know and we'll work something out.

John

[HOLMES]

Looking very good John