In October 2018 I started building a 1/72 Supermarine Spitfire Pr.X1X from Airfix. I worked out what paints to use and built the cockpit pretty quickly. I got scared off by assembling and masking the fuselage. Over the last week I've been finishing it off.
The first sub assembly I tackled in 2019 was the propeller. The yellow tone I picked out looked weird and sort of de-saturated so I went for a warmer Averland Sunset.
Next up I attempted to airbrush the fuselage using the colour I picked out in 2018. It turned out a lot darker than I wanted so I ended up mixing a more blue in.
Above you'll see that the masking on the canopy isn't the best but it's good for a first attempt I think.
I started applying decals and quickly realised that the softener does weird stuff to the acrylic paint. Nothing I could do there but move on and do a gloss coat on the rest of the plane to stop it happening again.
The triple crown decals are really tough to soften so I ended up creasing them with a blade.
I applied the rest of the decals and did a some panel lines and exhaust weathering with oils. The final result is below.
I'm reasonably pleased with the result. The next decals I use will get a treatment of Micro Set under them before I start trying the Micro Sol. I also had some issues with the Vallejo gloss varnish, through the airbrush with Vallejo thinner it never seems to be as gloss as I want. I've ordered some Tamiya gloss to try on the next kit (which is a Tamiya F16CJ).