I finally finished my Devastator adventure. Although I enjoyed them both, I'm glad they're finally over. Here's my representation of a yellow-winged pre-war TBD from VT-2 aboard the USS Lexington. I recently read that these were painted in this flamboyant manner so they could be easily seen by rescue if they crashed into the drink. Makes sense to me, but I'm not sure it's accurate..........talk amongst yourselves.
For painting I used a mix of Alclad II and AK Extreme Metal for the fuselage. I'm starting to like the AK product, especially their Duraluminum which had a very slight gold hue to it. You can also spray it right on bare plastic as it doesn't seem to attack the plastic. The only drawback is that it takes longer to dry than Alclad.
For the wings and tail I use Tamiya XF-3 Yellow with a touch of XF-7 Red. All markings were painted with the use of Montex masks, except the VT-2 bomb cartoon below the pilot which is a decal. I again struggled with the markings in the corrigated sections. I had to go back and fix lot of bleed under with Tamiya tape.
I did decide to bite the bullet and mix the kit canopies with vacuform again. I think I screwed a few of their proper locations up, but I'm way past caring at this point regarding this crappy design. In the end it looks acceptable and you can see the interior. Yes, I know the prop blades should be silver, but I painted both at the same time and forgot to got back and repaint this one. Oh well, who's to say they didn't put a black one on at some point.
I did an oil wash with some AK streaking fluid to make it look used. I was going for good condition but used. I didn't want it to look like a toy. I hope I achieved it. With that, I can't think of anything else.
