Onto the painting
Painting is pretty much done in a series of stages. First of these is to pre-shade the areas where the light blue (RLM 76) will go. A lot of modellers don’t like this technique but I still think it has a place and can be quite effective under lighter colours and if kept subtle.
The upper camo pattern can then be added (RLM74/75) using paper masks held slightly off the surface by blobs of Blu-Tac. This allows a soft demarcation line to be created between all the colours. The mottle is next and this was done free hand (see Techniques Bank for help here). Initially this was far too heavy so I toned it down using a thinned light blue that was gradually added until the mottle effect got to the level I wanted.
As I said painting is just a series of stages so next the tail and exhaust areas where masked off and painted white and black respectively. Again more masking for the RLM02 in the wheel wells and flap recesses and the trim tabs are red on the rudder, elevators and ailerons.
