Wow thanks for all the great responses to this, I really appreciate them! I was *incredibly* nervous about posting here, since I' ve seen so many great builds and wasn't sure if mine was up to snuff.
@TJS, I took some pictures and doing this to the best of my recollection at this point.
For the body colors there's a color kit from AKAH that has the three main colors for the camo pattern
For the panel line wash I just the following oil paint and paint thinner :
Mixed up a little oil in cup with the thinner and then brushed the whole model down. Note that I did apply a clear coat of Tamiya X-22. Waited about an hour before wiping it down. I think it took 4-5 days before it dried? Maybe longer, I did this step just before I had to leave back to my parents, so I'm not sure how long it took to actually dry out. But, two months later it was *definitely* dry! LOL. This came out really well and it's a lot easier than fiddling wiht Tamiya Panel wash. I did make a discovery though, for my own experience (and maybe I'm applying the paint layers too thin?), trying to put on the panel line color, and then use something like Testors enamel thinner ended up eating through the underlying paint color VERY easily, and was very difficult to use effectively. These uderlying colors had been almost 100% Tamiya acrylics. However when I switched to using the Tamiya X-20 Enamel thinner then it went much much better, with no issues eating through the underlying paint.
For the metals I used a combination of Tamiya colors, Mission Models, and Model Master:
Also used these
Especially the "D" one, to help with the heat marks.
For the cockpit interior I used a mix of these two paints from Mr. Hobby, I found someone online that had done this so I used his formula I think, roughly 50%-50%, and then thinned it with Mr. Color Leveling thinner 400.
It's not a flat finish, sort of a satin sheen to it, so I used XF-86 to make it flat.
If anyone is interested I used black Stynlrez for primer on everything.
For airbrushes I used these two guys
And I can't say enough good things about them! Omg the change from a $30 cheap Chinese double action, to H&S was simply amazing. The Stynylrez primer would frequently have problems with the cheap airbrush, clogging up, etc. But the H&S airbrushes (the Ultra and then the Chameleon) had absolutely *no* issues whatsoever. The cleanup is easier and the action is smooth and controllable.