NMF Help needed

[swimmer25k]

Just today I finished the AMK Mig-31 as well as a Hasegawa F-104D.  Both in 1/48 scale.  I'm planning on taking them to JAXCON, which is just under three weeks from today.  Since I have a little time before the contest, I went through my pile of shame and picked up my 1/48 GWH F-15.  I had backdated it to an early A the best I could.  There are a few inaccuracies that would have required kit-bashing and/or major surgery.  I don't really care if there's a hump or bump in a place where it shouldn't be.

 

This is the third time I've tried to build this model.  It is my white whale.  The first two attempts were with the Hasegawa kit.  Both of them found their demise in the seam running through the middle of a large wing pattern.  I could never really get it all out.

 

Along comes GWH and their awesome kit, without a seam through major panels.  I backdated it with a Stencel (sp?) seat, fared over the gun vents and muzzle, sliced off a scoop on the bottom of the jet, and found some A wheels from the spares box.  I also scratch built a new test boom that comes way out in front of the model. 

 

I ended up benching this project because the NMF didn't look right to me.  (Except for the paint, decals, canopy, and some small details; it's finished.) I consider myself to be somewhat of an expert (some wouldn't ) at these types of finishes and have usually had good luck in applying it.  I have the benefit of having about 25 color and B&W photos taken from the original slides by a USAF photographer (Slowiak?) that were lent to me by a departed friend that some of you recall as the "Machmaster" (Warren Munkasy).

 

From the modeling perspective, the jet is entirely symmetrical.  This is where I found a problem.  The symmetry looks to damned weird.  I need to find a way to weather and enhance each one to give it some individuality and not like a store bought toy.  It just didn't look real.

 

I have done salt weathering on several projects with very good results, however, only on small areas such as the exhausts of my aforementioned Mig-31 and to weather all gray jets like an F-18.  An entire model done with this technique would probably look strange and not to mention the time it would take to do.  I do see myself masking off some panels and doing this.

 

I have also done "dot filter" using oil paints such as ochres, umbers, red, yellow, etc.  I don't think that this is the best approach either.

 

Do any of you have suggestions on how to best go about doing this?  Please see the picture below to see what I'm talking about.

 

Thanks for your time,

 

Chris