Hey FSM,

Thanksgiving vacation and rainy SoCal weather was the perfect combination for getting this Shelf Queen finished.

This kit was built as a WIF for the wife. My wife's a redhead and my nickname for her is "Red," hence, the noseart. The markings were inspired by the 19th FS, with a little artistic license taken here-and-there. I used a pin-up and numbers from the spares-drawer to personalize the airframe. I made her birthday into the plane's serial and plane number. "RED-E" came from Aztec Models' sheet for RED-E RUTH. Also, to add a little more pizzazz, I painted a spiral onto the spinner and painted the wingtips too. 

Now, about the build itself. It's OOB except for the decals I already mentioned, some paper seatbelts in the cockpit, and resin wheels. It's painted with Alclad and MM enamels. Weathered with pastels and Flory washes. The plastic went together almost perfectly. I can't remember using any filler. The only tricky part of the build was the windscreen. Overall, it was a pretty fun build. There's another one of these in my stash that I'll get to one of these days. Anyway, on to the pictures...

Thanks for stopping by! Questions, comments, and criticisms are welcome.

Cheers,

-O