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Aqueous acrylic has poor adhesion on bare plastic, it’s really best to prime first.

If you have a plotting cutter, or know someone that has one, then vinyl or Kabuki tape stencil masks would be the way to go.

I’d have no hesitation priming an RAF bomber in black, with the caveat that I’m airbrushing. The 262B below had a black primer that was retained for the under surfaces and engine nacelles.

If you take a look at some of Chris McSheffrey’s builds you can see for yourself that marbling works when oversprayed with subtle overcoats. It’s perfectly legitimate to use black as a primer, not just for metallic finishes and what for you might seem fashionable rubbish is a means for others to achieve certain effects. Seems to me you don’t like it because you never tried it. wink

The point? To give depth and shade without overworking with washes and post shading. You can also overlay a black base with white/grey marbling to get a weathered effect. Personally I have no issue with applying green and dark earth over black, but it presumes that you’re using an airbrush.

The black basing enthusiasts might take issue with this statement! joy

Sometimes the figures have to be compromised, due to it being impossible to replicate scale thicknesses within cockpits, seats etc. For example the gunner figure in the 1/72 Defiant is decidedly under-nourished in order to get it to fit within the turret. Revell made a really good set of 1/72 RAF figures as a stand alone set, one of the constant complaints about it is that the seated figures that are intended to fit into cockpits require modification to get them to fit.

Needs a primer coat, or wetting agent added to the paint.

It depends how much you expect to handle the part. I have little faith in aqueous acrylic being able to have good adhesion onto bare plastic, especially a transparency, so I would prime. If you use a black primer you can kill two birds with one stone.

It depends who manufactured your A6M. Mitsubishi manufactured Zeros would have the wells essentially in airframe colour, those manufactured by Nakajima essentially aotake. If you do a Google search and include the name Nick Milman you should get some hits that point toward reference articles.

As Ratch says, use masking to achieve a sharp edge. I use yellow washi type tape cat into thin strips. If you want to have a go at freehand painting use liner brushes with long bristles, this helps achieve straight lines. If you do an eBay or Amazon search you'll find them in the nail art sections and you can pick them up cheap as chips.

Your build, your rules. For any purists observing, it's actually none of their business.

^^^This. FWIW I gloss after decals, because it makes it easier to remove/manipulate weathering treatments. Washes, especially are likely to stain applied over a matt surface.

You'll get dozens of different recommendations, my own picks would an AS186 compressor (with reservoir) and one of the Fengda airbrushes, the latter are cheap as chips but are really quite reasonable quality. You should find the compressor on Amazon or eBay for under £100. If you're prepared to spend a bit more on the airbrush the Gunze Sanyo range of Procon airbrushes are outstanding. Go for a top cup/gravity feed.

1/43 is big within the car modelling community, but mostly die-cast and resin kits. Heller have quite an extensive range of 1/43 kits in their tooling catalogue, maybe Airfix think it's an untapped market?

It's not just you, but there are loads of recent vids up on the Youtube page. They may have decided to drop Sprue Talk if it wasn't getting plenty of hits

I've read elsewhere about the handling qualities of the Stirling. Approaches were made difficult, as I understand it, due to the height of the cockpit above ground level and being so far forward of the main gear. Allied to this, the Exactor throttles fitted to the Stirling were not helpful. Cracking build, very nicely executed.

The likelihood of anyone having a spare transparency is slim, you’d be better off clicking on support from the menu above, then products and repairs.

You could try a match to FS 35189 which is often quoted in relation to the Wildcat colour. In the Humbrol range this is Hu 157 Azure Blue. In the instructions to their Wildcat kit Eduard quote Mr Hobby C367, which is equivalent to Hu 157.

If you're referring to ANA 603, on IPMS Stockholm Fredrikkson lists this as FS 36118. The Humbrol Paint Conversion Chart lists Hu 125 as equivalent to FS 36118.

The more recent Airfix kits have re-cycling lables on their boxes and sprues, you shouldn't have any issue with adding them to plastic re-cycling waste for local authority collection.

Pavla did the Sea Gladiator parts as a conversion set, but they are now very scarce. Sword also did a 1/72 Sea Gladiator.

https://www.tamiya.com/english/products/87114paint_retarder/index.htm

I've got a fair number of Humbrol tinlets that are now unused, due to trying out other media (that I've ultimately found to be superior). I don't like simply dumping stuff, so I thought I'd give the enamels one more whirl. Airbrushing them was not a great experience, it simply reinforced the fact that other forms of paint media are now superior. Tamiya acrylics spray beautifully thinned with lacquer type thinner. Bristle brushing them is a bear, due to their rapid set, they need a retardant added to them. The only paints I buy now are lacquer acrylics, Mr Color or Tamiya LP. Using the airbrush they set in 20-30 minutes, including gloss and can be masked over with a suitable low tack medium. There are lots of different paint brands these days and it's all very confusing. It's worth trying a few to see what works best for yourself, but my remaining enamel paints are now consigned to diorama work.