Let the mayhem commence...!!!

Well and truly into paint territory now, very slow going and not exactly easy on the old eyeballs...! Not much to show picture wise, but i'll post what I've got so far.

I'm starting with the lightest grey “accent” aztec layer as the base coat, which means the panel masks have to be cut and positioned quite carefully so they match up with the darker grey panels that will come later. The hardest part about this technique is getting the masks in the right spot when there's no panel lines or any other “datum” mark to tell you where to start, so I'm taking my time with this step because if the positioning of this first layer of masks is off, the other 3 aztec patterns will be affected and the whole pattern will be thrown out of whack.

Starting with the nacelles, I made a kind of alignment jig out of clear frisket by measuring and cutting out “landmark” shapes â€" in this case the triangle and “man” type shapes around the recesses at the back. Then, using the jig to guide me, the lightest panels were masked off according to the reference pics:

The underside of the nacelles were a but easier to deal with now I had something to guide me on top:

On to the secondary hull. Starting at the back and working forward seemed logical, so I used the panel lines scribed into the pylon base to guide me, measured, cut and masked as per ref pics. For the forward part of the hull I layed out tape over a spare kit part and marked out the panel lines, peeled of the tape and stuck it back down onto the cutting mat. Then, after some more sub-dividing and marking, I worked my way up and down each segment, all the way to the front, cutting out and positioning masks as accurately as possible as per the reference...which has taken AGES:

This is gonna be a long slog, but hopefully worth it. Thanks for looking, any questions/comments are more than welcome. I'm off now, got a lower secondary hull to crack on with....!

Soong