Just finished this 1/48 Academy Lightning as an OOB build. Very good fit and details for a very reasonably priced kit. I made some belts from wine bottle foil and buckles from thin wire but it's barely visible thru the closed canopy.
The decals are from PrintScale and are extremely thin which means really good results and NO silvering. However, great care must be taken while sliding them on to position or they will fold under itself and are just about impossible to recover.
I love Alclad but I have several bottles of Floquil Old Silver and Platinum Mist so I used those over polished Tamiya primer. I then rubbed some SNJ aluminum powder and sealed it with Alclad Aqua Gloss, producing a slight oxidized metallic finish with subtle metallic shades. Unfortunately SNJ powders are out of production so I take care of my small bottle like powdered gold!
I did some research about the super chargers and the staining and read that their exhaust stains were either a light tan or a greysh color depending on how lean the mixture was to extend the range. The super chargers were painted with burnt metal MM metalizer and then were given a burnt sienna oil paint wash to get that heated metal rusty look. They were glued in place and thinned Testor's flat brown with a drop or two of white was lightly airbrushed at 8 PSI to get the fading exhaust stain. Comments are welcomed and thanks for looking.
