I finished off my winter aircraft and was close to finishing the project. However, when going through my extra stuff to figure out what I was going to sell off, I realized I still had two more Wildcats. I had already done two of these, but in an early war scheme. I still want to get a pair of Corsairs, but these are proving a little too pricy. In the meantime, I figured I should just go ahead and paint up the two other Wildcats in a mid to late war scheme and add them to the question.
I decided to go with the full dark sea blue schema, as it would be easy to paint! I pulled out the planes and spray painted them with some gloss dark blue spray paint I had. Interestingly, the coat did not fully cover the planes and gave a darker shade in the recesses and lighter on the panel lines. Well, I normally am screwing up and having to fix things. This time I got bonus shading with no effort! I’ll take it!
A few days after I sprayed the models, I pulled them out as got to work on them. First, I hit the control surfaces with some black to make them stand out a bit. I then hit the engine, guns and tires with the same. Next, I had to do the cockpit. I had been doing a contrast blue on all my other planes, but these being blue, I thought that would be a bit much. So, instead, I went with a dark green. I then added the magnets.
Since the model was already gloss, I went straight to applying the decals that I had ordered when I made the call to paint the planes. As the scheme has large roundels and has a lot of white, they give a pretty impressive contrast.
Next I sprayed the planes with some satin coat to tone them down and then hit the cockpit glass with some gloss coat to finish off the planes. With that, I now have what I need to support my Marines, as least until I find some Corsairs!
- Manteuffel