1/72 P-40 M WARHAWK

Inspirational and impressive. You have a steady hand and now I want to give it a try too lol.

Very well done Blake. Antenna cables could be a little thinner, but the artistry of the shark teeth and the effort behind it are impressive. Wish I could do that kind of hand painting.

Hi...I am honoured with all the positive feedback I've been getting on this post, thank you very very much!

I'd like to say a bit more on the hand painted shark's mouth.  Unfortunately, I really didn't take any WIP photos on this build and my process was a haphazard trial and error one...so this is by no means a tutorial, just me recounting the build for anyone who is interested... 

First I applied the kit decals. I had no complaints with the ones provided, but a few complaints with my ability to apply them.  Off ever so slightly, cracking around compound curves.  I used Micro-Sol/Micro-Set, but I dunno...I took my trusty #11 blade and removed the flash. Still not happy I took some toothpicks and 400 grit sandpaper and removed the decals all together.  The kit provides two shark's mouth sets, but at this point I had resolved to use paint.

I used the the outline left by cutting off the decal flash as a guide to paint in the main white area.  I used Humbrol gloss white, I find gloss works better for this type of thing. I gave it three coats and let it cure.

In the mean time I cracked the books.  By that I mean I spent a bunch of time looking on Google images.  What I found was that while there were many great color photos of restored aircraft with wonderful artistic mouths:

Actual Wartime service examples would often be *less than* perfect:

This thought was encouraging because it meant that if I did a reasonable job with the rest of the process, my inevitable imperfections could actually add to the sense of realism rather than take away from it.

Wow!  Looks great.  Honestly, I don't know how you guys work with 1:72.  My eyes just can't do it anymore, which makes this build even more impressive!  Great Job, Raymond

Very nice work.  I hope my 1/48 Academy P-40 comes out nearly as well.. You've inspired me to attempt hand painting the shark mouth on mine now.  ( I think I'm crazy to try it ,but yours looks so much better than decals)

Hey Blake, Your P-40 looks awesome. Really nice work overall. The hand painted tiger mouth is simply fantastic. You have much steadier hand than I, that's for sure. thanks for sharing.

Excellent job with the shark teeth!

Thanks RX!

Came out real nice.  I could not tell the sharks teeth were hand painted, well done.