Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | PART 4

Last time around, the Mustang got all painted up…

In this post, it’s all about the decals, weathering, and finishing touches.

Decals

The decals for Henry Brown’s “The Hun Hunter ~ Texas” come from an Eagle Strike sheet covering “early birdcage” Mustangs including a blue-nosed -B from the 352nd and an Allison-powered P-51A. The decals performed great in the actual application and sucked down reasonably well to panel lines, though I did get more silvering than I’d anticipated when I went to apply a matte coat after the fact. I’m suspecting at least part of it is due to the problems I’ve been having with Alclad gloss.

Ultimately the silvering was alleviated with another coat of gloss – this time Future cut with Windex.

Weathering

Once the Windex cured, out came my trusty Flory wash – Dark Dirt to be precise. As per usual, slather it on, let it sit for a little bit, then wipe it off with a damp paper towel.

The Dark Dirt ended up looking far too brown over the Dark Green, so I switched to Flory Black for those areas, then chased with a coat of Alclad Matte once everything was dried and all the little paper towel fibers were hunted down and removed. The end result:

If you look closely at the port wing, you may notice the clear glass for the landing light. It looks like ass. This part is a troublesome bugger on the P-51B, just slightly the wrong size for a snug fit. I said screw it, took it off, and used Micro Kristal Klear to form the glass instead.

The Ultracast exhausts were installed, Ultracast tires treated to some dirtying up with MIG Russian Earth pigments (a gorgeous gray-brown color that just “looks right” for tires that have seen some use). Props mounted. You get the idea. I spiced up the gear struts ever so slightly with some Airscale stencil decals.

What else? Gun stains were done with MIG Black, and the exhaust trails were a combination of several pigments.

Chipping was done with a Prismacolor silver pencil. The pictures I have of WR-Z don’t show very heavy weathering, but they do show some chipping and exposed screwheads.

Various lights were painted Model Master Chrome Silver and then overcoated with the appropriate Tamiya clears.

A pitot tube later and it was all done!

That wraps up the build log for this fine P-51 – be sure to check it out in the Completed Builds section of the site!

Intro | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | PART 4