Buckeye - the decals look solid from here, but I hear you about the band. I always try to paint those details if I can. Thankfully it's not too bad on the Spit. Masking fuselage bands on a pre-war Wildcat? I'll die before I'll do that again.
JOE RIX
Doogs - That is Outstanding! Do you happen to have any pics of the masks while they were on the model? Just curious as to how it looked.
Joe
Thanks! Unfortunately, I told myself "I should get a picture of it all masked up", and that's as far as I got! Pretty easy to visualize, though.
Basically, I started with tracing paper. Office Depot. Translucent, my ***! Next time I may try to track down something lighter than 25-lb paper. But I digress. Laid it over the wings, fuselage, or where necessary, cut a long strip (about the size of a bookmark) and did the wing/fuselage transition. Looking at images of the camo pattern, and what I'd already filled in, traced the camo pattern. Cut it out. Cut these "borders" into approx. 1/4" thick strips. Think of them like silly putty or poster putty worms, just made out of paper.
I taped these in place on the Middle Stone side with a few pieces of 6mm Tamiya tape, stuck to the palm of my hand many times to remove most of the tack. This degree of "flappabiity" I think is what pulled off the not-quite-hard-edge I was going for.
The roundel discs were literally the decal sheet copied, then cut out with a circle cutter. Taped in place on the Middle Stone ends. Everything else filled in with wider Tamiya tape, again stuck to the palm of my hand, forearm, etc to cut down the tack. When all was said and done, it lifted as easily as a Post-it, and often as not, the tape adhered to itself better than to the Spitfire, so it'd all come off in one big piece.
On the Bench: 1/32 Trumpeter P-47 | 1/32 Hasegawa Bf 109G | 1/144 Eduard MiG-21MF x2
On Deck: 1/350 HMS Dreadnought
Blog/Completed Builds: doogsmodels.com