Well, its been a while since I've posted any updates, but I have been making progress. The fuselage is now together and painting is underway, and the wings have made it as far as getting their iron cross decals.
The sequence of events for the wings went as follows:
First, a base coat of primer. I am using the black Mr. Finishing Surfacer 1500, thinned 1:1 with Mr. Color Leveling Thinner.
I am a big fan of this primer as it goes on very easily, and dries to a really nice, consistent light satin finish. Nice stuff. Next, I masked off the internal ribs using 1.5 mm strips of tape. I am not going for a particularly pronounced rib effect, but in a number of reference photos, they do appear slightly darker than the surrounding fabric. I am guessing that this is likely due to a) shadow, or b) oil stains, rather than some kind of transparency, but regardless, I wanted to allude to the effect.
I didn't mask the framing around the edges of the wing, but instead went a big light on the next coating of paint in those areas. Similarly, I didn't see any evidence of the longitudinal structures showing in the reference photos, so I left them out as well.
Next, I sprayed a thin (1:2) and extremely uneven coat of XF-22 (RLM Gray, my exterior color) followed by a similar coat of XF-55 (Deck Tan) in a handful of semi-random locations. After removing the tape:
I next sprayed an even thinner (1:3) coat of XF-22, stopping when the the contrast between the ribs and the spaces looked about right, and some subtle variety in the final color was still evident. It is challenging to capture in a picture (particularly one shot with a phone under the glare of a 100w incandescent desk lamp), but this is close:
Next comes a gloss coat (Alclad Aqua Clear), and the iron cross decals. I have left the smaller stencils off until later so as not to risk damaging them:
Finally, I carefully reapplied the tape to the ribs (after putting another coat of Aqua Gloss over the decals), and sprayed them with a thin coat of Tamiya Smoke, followed by a VERY thin touch of XF-1 (Flat Black) in a handful of areas where I wanted a stronger effect:
I am generally happy with the outcome, but continue to have problems gauging the strength of the Smoke shading; I just can't see the stuff until I remove the tape and see the contrast, so I wind up applying it heavier than I originally intended. As can be seen, my "darkened" ribs are now, in fact, lighter than the surrounding fabric.
I plan on adding specific oil stains and streaks, and will paint the metal walkways after the final clear coat is on in order to retain the aluminum finish. I have only shown the upper surfaces, but the process was the same on the bottoms. As this has been a long post (for a small amount of progress!), I will show the parallel steps undertaken on the fuselage in a separate post.
