Then it was on to the tough part....replicating the white spots. The route I decided to go down (which ended up working like a charm, as you'll see shortly) was to start by printing out one of the reference pics for this scheme in as close to 1/35 scale as I could manage. Didn't hit it exactly, but close enough for government work!
From the printout, I cut a couple of repetitions of the scheme I would need to make my template. Took my scrap sheet of styrene from the back of my spray booth and cut a piece off that was about the right width, with enough left over to use as a handle, and to cut down on the amount of overspray. Laid one of the cutouts on top of it to use as a guide to punch out all of the holes.
Turns out that a hole punch was almost exactly the right size for the medium circles so those were very simple to lay in. All of the smaller ones were matched up with different sized bits that I ran through with my Dremel, continuing to hold the paper in place over the styrene sheet. The largest one was too big for any of my bits, so I ended up using the hole punch 6 or 7 times, then smoothing out the edges with a sanding bit in the Dremel as well as some old fashioned 400 grit sandpaper. It isn't perfectly round, but will have to do.
A quick test shot of how the scale looks - again, not perfect, but pretty darn close!
Mixed up some thin flat white - about 30%/70% paint to thinner. Needed to keep it flowing very easily, and judging by the photos (especially over the markings) didn't want it to be too opaque. The process was remarkably fast, 30-40 minutes tops of spraying through the template. There were a few places where there were obstructions that didn't allow the template to get as close to the model's surface as I would have liked, but the results overall were more than satisfactory:
A good bit of detail painting to get to tonight, as well as starting to play around with the sheet/tarp materials. After that it's off to the weathering races - all suggestions will be happily accepted! 