How to paint dark color schemes

Any photos I do on my finished models, I do outside in sunlight, just to get realistic shadows.  If you try to duplicate sunlight shadows in one lighting condition, I feel they look funny with other lighting.

You can weather that solid blue to add some interest.  I mix up a whitened mix of the color and airbrush just a very thin coat on the top of the fuselage (while the canopy is still masked, top of wings, and top of horizontal tail surfaces.  On the top of fuselage area, I round the corner a bit so an even lighter coat goes on the upper fuselage sides.  This lightened coat represents paint chalking due to sunlight exposure.

Other weathering also enhances such monochrome paint schemes- oil and hydraulic stains, exhaust stains, etc.

Hello!

Well, you have to use your imagination - and look at lots of 1:1 photos, too! As for tricks it could help to lighten the colour a bit - the more the smaller the model is going to be. Smaller objects really tend to look darker than they should - this is known as the scale effect. At first I didn't like the idea, but then when you get used to the thought that there is NO SUCH THING as 100% accurate colour in modelling, you just have to be in the ballpark. Then there's is fading caused by the sun and sea salt spray, and exhaust grime. So try to get some nice contrast on your aircraft - from definitely lightened spots in the middle of large flat upper panels, to dark crevices where oil and crud corrosion would accumulate and you should be OK. Remember to look at the photos! Good luck with your builds and have a nice day

Paweł