Thanks folks!
Joe, thanks for the encouragement. Sorry for the lack of details in my catch-up, I am not quite sure how much to add to my posts yet. I think that a lot of what I have to say would be old news to most of you guys and I don't want to underwhelm anyone.
That said:
The invasion stripes are the kit decals, and went on very well. I hammered them with Micro Set and Sol to try and get them into the panel lines etc as much as possible. I used the decals, mainly because of the paint lift problem I'd been having so far and wanted to minimize the chances of any more. Also I used them because I didn't see how I would possibly be able to mask around the fish plates at the rear of the fuselage and not have paint get underneath.
For the camouflage, I photocopied the instruction sheet (I think I had to zoom to 120% to get it the proper size) and then cut the patterns out and taped them in place. I would really like to learn how to use silly putty to do this instead, as it is painful to mask off the parts that join wing to fuselage etc.
The rockets were painted yellow first, then I sliced very narrow strips of Tamiya tape and wrapped them around the nose and sprayed the green.
Hope that answered everything.
I attached the gear last night and snapped a quick pic from the starboard side to show the decal that did manage to cover the spot where the paint lifted that I mentioned above. It's a bit further back than where it is supposed to be, but it's doing it's job as intended and covering the blemish.
One thing I'd really like to work on at some point is learning how to detail landing gear by adding brake lines etc. It adds just that bit extra. Maybe I'll try on my next one. This is a nice little kit, but 1/72 is pushing it for me (and my eyes!) so I'll be moving back up to 1/48.
Allen