Thanks, it's a Pitts Super Stinker by Midwest. First painted the whole plane silver. One coat everywhere, another light coat where silver would be the color that showed. I masked off all the silver I wanted to show (including all the silver stripes with 1/8" tape) then sprayed one good coat of orange everywhere except where there would be large areas of red on the wings. One coat of orange will cover fine over silver, but if you sprayed orange over no color it would take two coats. Then I masked off the orange and painted the large red areas. Finally I laid some 1/4" tape next to the masked off silver areas that left 1/8" of the orange next to the silver exposed and applied the red stripes with a brush, could have done it with an airbrush. Pulled all the tape off and done.

I've read a few comments saying your first paint job won't look as good as monokote. That might be true, it also might not, depends on the persons abilities, and if they've done a little research and prep work and how complicated they get on the color scheme. Also depends on what you think looks good, I can't stand most arfs with all the multiple swishes and swoops and 8 different colors.

The first kit you build might not look as good as an ARF, and you won't do as good a job covering it as someone in china would, but it you let that stop you, you'll never build a kit to begin with. So yeah, don't expect your first paint job to be perfect, use it as a learning experience. The one thing to keep in mind on your fist paint job is if you have to decide between light weight and good looks, go with light weight. Keep the color scheme simple so you don't have multiple coats on top of each other.

A color scheme doesn't need to be complicated to look good. Here's a Phaeton 90. The whole fuse is red except the stab and stripe, the wings are silver with a read leading edge. Simple.