Clear parts
The bubble canopies are two-part items and can be posed open or closed, regardless they are highly visible and the interior framing is worth painting versus just interior coating the outside first. A little tricky for masking but well worth the effort.
I have opted to pose one open and one closed, as if at a mooring and preparing for flight.
The forward turret on the Mk1 Catalina was an open-top affair, bit cold in there I would think during flight, but I would assume they had a canvas cover or such like, couldn’t find a picture of that though to replicate.
Once again the interior framing is RAF Interior Green Cromate.
Finishing up
The floats and aerials can now be safely attached, left off till the last to avoid undue handling and damage.
The Yaggi antenna mounts are Gull Gray and the arials Alclad Steel.
You can see the effect of allowing the heavy pre-shade to come through the White clearer here.
The RAF armed the Catalinas with Vickers K .303 versus the heavier American .5 Browning. The forward turret has a reasonable representation of what you could say looks like a Vickers K, but nowhere could I find AM replacements in 1:48 scale for the waist stations. So artistic licence here, I popped one .5 Browning in there.
Finished in Alclad Gun Metal and then washed and dry brushed the kit parts come up ok, although I did have Eduard PE as an option, decided to stick with the OOB version.
The .5 Browning mount needed a dash of Interior Green and the front gun some brown for the handles. The forward gun is not easily seen, but the waist station weapon is directly visible.
That about wraps up our elegant lady, the only thing left to mention is the stand, which I robbed from the spares box (dare I say it, from my maritime stash). This I finished in Alclad but I have to admit a seascape diorama would be the perfect setting for this lovely lady.