Hi Leon,
A very, very nice P 47N, your struggles have not been in vain, you should certainly be proud of this.
I will give you my thoughts on the areas you ask about.;
1) The natural metal finish. You don't say what you used to achieve this, but I would guess its Allclad? It is very well done, but I think natural metal finishes, on combat aircraft, should not be to shinny. I know, from my own experience that it is very difficult to "destroy" a lovely finish like this, but unless the aircraft is brand new, or polished every day, few panels would retain a high shine. This is of course only my opinion, as I have never flown a combat aircraft with a natural metal finish. Having studied the pics a little closer it might just be the flash from your camera that makes it appear bright?
2) The light weathering. I like weathering aircraft, but it's difficult to strike the right balance. On my own P 47N I used the weathering to tone down the NMF, using a dark grey oil based wash. Using artist oil paint leaves a thin film of colour over the surface. I also gave the coloured areas, yellow in my case, a matt coat. This helps to illiminate shine on the model. Gloss paint would loose some of it's gloss in use. Your weathering looks to be in keeping with a relatively clean and new airframe. If you were to weather a little more then a couple of small paint chips, in the coloured areas, around hatches would add interest and a sense of being in use.
3) The propeller chipping. I think this is very well done. I think the yellow tips, might be a little to big?
4) The gun barrels. They look very good, did you drill out the kit ones or are they metal tubing? in the second picture the 2 inner barrels seem to have a slightly out of line position? Is the gun numbering missing from the wing panels?
5)"How come I have so much trouble photographing nmf" Not knowing how you took the pics it's difficult to give any advice. I don't think that the pics are that bad (in fact they are pretty good), judging by the fact that there are several shadows I assume you used a few lights? Could they have been of different types? The orange affect, on the wings in pic 3, could come from an ordinary light bulb? Is your white balance correct?
I just want to say that my comments are based on the pics, but I suspect if I were to have the privilege of seeing this in the flesh then no comments other than wow, would be necessary
Mal
President
