Why am doing this?

Time for the undercarriage,
missiles, pitot tubes etc, a quick spray of varnish, then a subtle wash and this kit will be done.

Feck. Feck, feck, feck!
Said undercarriage is

• ridiculously small
• floating
• made up of myriad ingenious mechanical brainwaves during the existential threat of the Cold War

Very tempting to go old skool with a suspended model, sans undercarriage.

But.. enough glue poured into those wheel wells might just work.

Decal Time

The Lightning model project lingers on.

So... some of the masking wasn't perfect.. some of the spray paint wasn't even.
Oscillated a few times between painting the dorsa via brush and fixing up the overspill with spray. And vice versa (and mixing up surgical spirits along with white - bad move)

Then the spray ran out.

Time do the decals mayhap- a little bit of detail will surely distract from the painting mess, how hard could it be?
Somewhat stressed readding the application of decals as apparently "silverring" is to be avoided.
Know not what this silverring thing is but prepare to avoid it by giving the Lightning a good old coat in Klear and a couple days when I have to do other things.

Turns out decals aren't so bad - you can try it the proper way i.e. 20 second soak, gentle nudge with a QTip, or do Old Skool - submerge the area and ram the decal wherever it will go until the least unacceptable position is found and resist the temptation to tweak it just a little bit as per as per.

Without  further ado, here is Lightning,with certain decals that I could actually see:

(Hides a multitude of sins)