Thanks as always folks!
The build is progressing speedily. Today I finished the fuselage clean up and had a play with the lozenge. Given that the Aviattic lozenge is transluscent, I had a bit of a play with some pre-shading. Some experiments on scraps showed that a black pre-shade under the decal was way too stark, so the trick was going to be to keep the pre-shading subtle. Also, undercoat colour with these decals plays a big part. As I wanted more of a 'brown' lozenge to go with my 'brown' wing, I went with a 'brown" based undercoat of Gunze "sail colour" and pre-shaded with this colour plus a little bit of black mixed in, thus:
I then applied the decals straight over the top. These are the "faded" versions, so they essentially come pre-faded and textured. Here's the result - instant weathering without the fear of tearing or wrecking decals!
I think that if I had another go I would lighten the base coat further as the overall effect is quite dark, but that said I was quite happy with the way the pre-shading showed through. I am getting used to the way that these decals react under decal softener, but they are quite forgiving decals due to their "stretch". They don't stay colourfast under harsh thinners though, so a word of warning to clear coat them before doing any further weathering (don't ask me how I found this out.... ). I did also think about rib tapes, but layering these decals doesn't really work too well as you get large variances in colour density (as noted in the instructions). I think the pre-shading gives the right effect anyways.
Now to let them dry while I work on some other components.
Cheers,
BC
