The priming and main painting is now complete. I really got a kick out of this wild, late war camo scheme. The relentless pressure and disruption on aircraft production coincident with a paint scheme change-over (RLM 74/75 to RLM 81/82) resulted in some interesting and unique color schemes across the various factories assembling Doras. Black 4 was produced at the Mimetall factory, with subassemblies -- wings, engine, tail, etc. -- coming from various distributed suppliers.
Mr Finishing Surfacer 1500 was applied as primer, followed by the red and yellow JG 301 bands. Gloss black was applied before the natural metal Mr Color Super fine silver.
After the metal section was dry and masked, RLM 76 was applied to the ailerons, the top surfaces of the wings and stabilizers, and the rudder. The paint was applied unevenly with the addition of highlights and shading.
After masking, RLM 81 was next. Apparently there were three versions of RLM 81, with varying degrees of green and brown. My Mr. Color mix was 5 parts RLM 81 and 2 parts Red Brown. RLM 81 was applied to the wing and stabilizer upper surfaces as well as the front portion of the underside of the wings and the landing gear doors.
After masking the wings and stabilizers, the fuselage and tail were painted a lightened version of Mr. Color Duck Egg Green to represent the blue-green version of RLM 76. RLM 81 was then applied along the spine from nose to tail. The engine cowling and sections of the spine near the tail were sprayed with RLM 82 bright green. RLM 81 and 82 mottling was then applied to the tail.
The profile indicated some rust colored primer/putty near the tail and around panels underneath.
After some general clean up and then chipping and scratching in wear areas, GX100 gloss was applied and now Black 4 is ready for decals. I had some previously used Montex masks but they weren't in good enough shape to re-use unfortunately. The Eagle Cal decals look good. Thanks for looking.
