Next on the agenda is to dirty the airframe which will highlight all the molded detail. The finish out the box is good but with a few hours work you can really enhance it.

It's very easy, all you need are some water based paints, two rags, a hairdryer and some ultra fine wire wool.

First off you need to decide on the color of the wash, some artistic license is required here as the color depends on the base coat, for example, on this model there are three main colors so three different color washes will need to be applied obviously the real aircraft wouldn't be like this but because of scaling effect etc... this technique gives the best results.

Mix up your paint and then add water to get the desired consistency. I'm going for a subtle look underneath, the grey is very light so anything dark would over power it with this in mind I made up a muddy mixture using Humbrol acrylics. Wet a rag out with the paint and wipe it over the areas you want to highlight. Use the hairdryer for a few seconds, don't over do it or your going to actually dry the paint onto the base coat you want it just before it goes tacky. Working quickly wipe the paint off again with a clean dry rag. Don't worry if it's smeared you can go over the finish with some 0000 wire wool which will blend it in nicely. Once your happy with the effect you can move onto highlighting certain areas. For this mix up a darker wash and apply it to the areas behind panels drag back in the direction of the air flow and do as described above. Blend the streaks in with wire wool. Parts will have to be airbrushed but you can do the larger panels like this, I'll do the whole airframe together as it's a hassle getting all the spray equipment out.

again the flash spoils the photos a bit but you can get the idea.

Cheers, Alex