Elite markings and the final assembly

Bloodstriping

I thought I'd do the red stripes low-tech, as in cutting a few stripes of masking tape and set them up nicely. There were no clear uniform ways to do this so I did what looked good to me.

Because I've never (because of my own stupidity, methinks) bought the VMA red, I used what I had: the basic red (VMC 70926 Red).  Of course I could've thinned it down enough to get it through my airbrush, but I just didn't feel like it. Instead I dabbed the parts with a sponge quite roughly with the full knowledge that I'd have to fix something later on. [115]

While I was cleaning up my own mess I remembered my previous mumblings regarding the main viewport. I decided that these frames should be the same colour with the rest of the pod, so I carefully painted them with the same paint (VMA 71120 USAF Medium Grey). It ended up looking good to me. [118]

Setting up the package

To finish that session up I glued the wings on at long last and while I was at it I also tore off the last strips of the masking tape from the ingress/egress hatch. None of them had leaked so that half-worry was proved pointless. [120]

The space weather

Because my collection of washes contained the grey one (VMW 76516 Grey), I used it on all the grey parts. Most of my attention was concentrated on the pod and the center parts of the wings, as they had the most visible greebles. [130]

I thought it looked a bit different from the previous step's model. If nothing else, the panel lines and such were darker than before. At least I felt the whole model had some more depth in it, but I could be slightly partial and saw what I wanted to.

Then I drybrushed (VMA 71121 USAF Light Grey) the Interceptor quickly and somewhat roughly. Again I concentrated mostly on the pod's highlights and the edges of the wings. I guess you could see something even in these photos, seen live the effect was noticeable. The main thing was that it didn't jump out annoyingly. [140]

Solar collector panels

The original factory-painted solar panels were matt black. To  me they didn't look right that way, so I finished mine up with a layer of Vallejo's gloss varnish. I was slightly concerned about the results, thanks to the odd look one of the previous project's steps, where the plane looked wet. My fear was unfounded, as these ones looked just the way they should be, seen live and after they had got cured. [145]

The coin is there to provide some recognizable scale