I have been plugging away but not posting. This will be long unfortunately. Where was I? Oh yeah....I glued the pit tub in place sans the seat and head armor as they can be added later. This way I can seal the pit with tape easily and not worry about breaking them. I switched to the gear bays. The detail in here is amazing and everything fit quite well. My research showed that early Lightnings had neutral grey bays, inner doors, and legs. In hindsight, I should have added the door arms at the end as I managed to break two off (and lost one of them).
I then assembled the pod and added the nose cone. I should mention the guns are a one piece assembly that goes in behind the nose piece. This has to be inserted before attaching the nose, so it's challenging for painting the guns. Sort of a dumb design. I sliced the barrels off and will supplement Master metal barrels later.
Underside perfect fit...
The booms went together without issue and before I knew it I was here. Not a single drop of putty, just normal seamwork. Like a glove.
On a side note, I had Alclad aluminum loaded in my airbrush (for when I painted the inside radiators and such) and I used it to check my seams. It worked great. Seams stuck out like a sore thumb. It worked way better than my silver Sharpie.
Unlike the Hasegawa kit, there is perfect fit at the wingroots....
Time for some paint. I decided on Thomas McGuire's 475th FG "#131 Pudgy". McGuire had 38 kills and was hot on the tail of Bong before being killed in a low level accident during a combat mission.
After a panel line preshade. I painted in the red with white stripes on the booms and tail. These were then taped off.
I wanted to do some minor upper wing chipping which is common on these, particularly on the port side where the pilot would walk. I sprayed this area Alclad aluminum then added AK Interactive chipping fluid.
Next I started on the Neutral Grey. I used AK Real Colors. After a coat of NG straight from the bottle, I added XF-2 White and marbled it. I call it reverse black basing (to mock the people who actually do the ever time consuming black basing...pure torture 
). Once sufficiently marbled. I went back with the straight NG color and feathered it in panel-by-panel. I like the uneven patchwork effect.
I added blue tac for demarcation masks.
Ready for some OD....
I've been dying to try the reverse black basing technique with Olive Drab. I used AK Real Colors Olive Drab 41 and Faded Olive Drab. I started with straight OD 41. I think they did a nice job on this color.
Next I marbled in the faded OD. I even added some XF-57 Buff to lighten it up more in some places. I then went back with straight OD and feathered that in panel-by-panel. This took me 3 hours but I'm pleased with the results. To my eye it offers the same results as the black basing.
I used a toothpick on the upper port wing and scraped up some of the paint of to reveal the aluminum. I thought this was about right and I didn't want to overdo it. I may do a little bit more.
Overall effect. I'm very pleased.
We don't need stinkin' decals...
I must say, after this paint exercise, the AK Real Colors line is the best I've ever used. It goes down smooth and dries quick. I will probably switch to it exclusively eventually, at least for exterior paint schemes. I could not find P-38 Montex masks, so I will have to use decals.