The model was firstly primed with Tamiya Fine grey primer and then given several light coats of Tamiya gloss black thinned 50/50 with Gunze self-levelling thinner. The nose was given a slightly different shade of black (Tamiya NATO Black) as it tended to fade more with the sun due to its paint composition and Dielectric base.
The decals application was supposed to be very easy and quick due to the limited numbers of markings on the aircraft. As it turned out this was anything but the case. The semi-opaque sheet covering the decals had stuck to the decal sheet and even when I managed to remove this the decals would not come off the backing sheet – basically they were unusable!!
Fortunately, the minimal markings meant that a solution was found in the form of some masking and spraying and some aftermarket decals. First job was to mask a yellow circle on each tail the diameter of which matched the size of the aftermarket plain red soviet stars. The wing stars were decals but this time with a yellow outline. This was the extent of the national marking!
With the markings in place the whole airframe was given a semi-matt varnish and the tail bare metal areas were masked of and give a metallic finish using Alclad2 paints and their hot metal shades.
The canopy on the F-5 has a light grey/white framing around it and this was replicated using thin strips of spare decal that was settled into place using Micro Sol.
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