three views of the instrument panels, after I got this far I set everything together to have a look and I am certain the cockpit interior is a mix of too large for scale ( panels, openings and consoles) and underscale, the bang seats and possibly the aircrew).

and fuselage halves together

well I made some more progress, the exhausts are ready to paint, the vertical stabilizer is just about ready for filling and sanding(lots of low spots from the plastic being so thick), the belly bomb racks are almost ready for sanding( the centers of each piece shrank out of the molds and had monster ejector pin marks), then they'll be ready to be corrected to hold four bombs each instead of the kit supplied two.

This kit is going to consume a lot of Mr. Surfacer and putter before I get to the point of painting the camo, which is another sticking point, the chosen color is Desert Pink with a 301XX FS number, I don't have the number here in front of me to reference, but I have no idea what the color actually is, tomorrow I'll post the FS number and see if anyone here might know.

Tonight its back to sanding and filling, one things for sure, by the time this build is over, I'll have a completely new respect for newer kits....................  

made lots of filling and sanding progress the last few days, and I tracked the color of paint I need for the desert camo scheme. The closest thing to it is ANA 616 Desert Sand, so next time I order parts and supplies I'll be getting two bottles.

Anyway, here are pictures of all the work..........

First is the low spots on the rudder and vertical tail

next is a look at the forward fuselage and some of the grand canyon like seams

here are the major assemblies all heaped together. The wing gloves are going to be major problem areas as far as filling and sanding go.

All the medium grey areas are Mr. Surfacer, the forward fuselage is going to be the worst area for filling, but the up side is there isn't any kind of detail on that area, so it a fair trade in my opinion.

and heres a look at the overall state of things.

More to follow  

PUTTY MONSTER!!!!  But it looks good so far--can't wait to see it done.  Definitely a character builder.

Calm seas do not a good sailor make... right? Your chugging along nicely here. As far as the RAF sand used, try Testors Flat Tan #1167 from the little square bottle. It is a good match for the color.

Do we know if this kit is supposed to represent a GR.1 or a GR.4? If it's meant to be a GR.4, the port-side cannon port needs to be filled in.

Rough but you seem to be beating her into shape, nice work!!!

I remember the kit I had now was the Airfix, looked a lot like this one though, I'd swear it was the same mold.

thanks stik, I'll look into the testors little bottle, that'll save me some green when I get the paint.

Phil_H- I have no idea what  the exact variant is......this is straight from the box

For a Desert Storm Tornado I am pretty sure it should be a GR.1. I want to say that the GR.3 did not see combat until the Balkan wars of the late 90's and Gulf War II.

well much progress has been made in the last few days.

Both drop tanks have been assembled and the fun fun fun fill, and repeat process started over again. I think I can safely that NOTHING in the box this kit came in will NOT have a seam to fill and sand, or that doesn't require fitting then filling and sanding, but in the end it'll give me a good refresher in the fundamentals of our hobby.

So here they are for your viewing pleasure, the drop tanks, I'm still working on fairing the lower fins into the tank body with Mr. Surfacer

These two were putty monsters, the only matching seams were where the vertical fins met, ever other one needed putty

and one last tank shot

next up is the seemingly endless seam reinforcement, the bag of Plastruct bits and pieces I have is going to get a workout from this kit.

Heres the rear of the lower fuselage half

I've masked off the speed brake wells, I just have to decide on the shade of green I want to use, the directions call for "Marine Corps Green" but I think I'm going a few shades lighter.

and last  are the wings and tailerons, I preshaded them with Dunklegelb Model Master, I thought it would be less harsh than a dark grey or black........but we shall see.

I've got a bottle of the tan stik recommended and I think I might experiment with a other tans to get a faded rode hard look

More to follow

Just to let you know the air brake interiors are white not green.

you are correct, I got the inside of the brakes mixed up with the well interiors, thanks for catching that for me

The wheel well interiors are also white.

That's right I have never seen interior aluminium green on any part of a tornado.

could be the ESCI instructions, they say the inside of the moving parts of the speed brakes are green, but I'll go with white cause you guys say so. and it'll save me the hassle of cleaning and re-setting up the airbrush for a different color.  

Well the quick easy way to confirm is to do an image search. You can have the answer in a moment.

did some late night air brushing last night.

Since the wings have to be painted before the fuselage halves can be closed I took the opportunity to try thid style of pre-shading. Here are the results.

I'll take clearer pictures this afternoon..........

Just a suggestion, but if you use a sheet of plain white paper behind your model parts that you are photographing, its removes the busy background that your camera may focus on.