Thanks guys! I really appreciate your commendation. Especially considering who it's coming from. You guys are the best, and the fact that you appreciate my work just puts me over the moon.
A few of you asked about the mottle. Eventually my goal is to do it freehand, but for the first attempt I used a bunch of different masks. Tamiya included a 1/48 scale drawing of the top and sides showing only the mottle. So, with many baby steps, I made copies of the drawing, and then chose a small part to mottle. I used a number 11 blade to cut out the mottle in the area I was working. Then to keep the paper mask off of the surface, (for the soft edge) I cut very, very thin strips of tape and put them on the underside of the mask, in order to lift it off the surface slightly. But it took a lot of paitence. I must have cut a hundred slivers of 3M fineline tape. The wings took four partial masks each, the fuselage five or six, and so on. The sand yellow to light blue demarcation was done freehand - over and over again! To the point I was fighting paint thickness a little bit at the end.
And, a couple of members had asked about my username. I'm not very creative, but it came from the fact that I used to work in a body shop, mostly on Mercedes. But now I work for Mercedes-Benz USA as a collision repair instructor. So, I kind of meant that literally.
Again, thanks everyone for your kind words and encouragement. I was a little nervous about posting them, but I see that we are all truly among friends!