From the bottom there's only one way forward

Delaying

I had to admit that repainting the bottom of the shuttle had not been looming in my horizon as the most exciting and wonderfulest of tasks. On Friday I finally pulled myself together and masked off what was to be masked and painted the final major area in three quick runs.

Again I had forgotten how thick my darker grey had gone (VMA 71123 USAF Dark Grey) and that made this process take at least twice as long as it had any business taking. The basic grey and off-white worked just like they promised to and that reduced my overall swearing significantly.

Finally getting up to speed I forgot to take the wip photo of the basic grey (VMA 71120 USAF Medium Grey) before applying the off-white, but I guess that wasn't a big issue as I had already documented the more noticeable parts at this stage properly. Over the grey I blasted a more carefully laid out layer of insignia white (VMA 71279) so that the landing gear bays and the landing gear themselves were left as clear of it as possible.

With the same idea I left the insides of the landing gear bay doors dark grey, but blasted the outsides white. My guiding idea was that the armoured outer shell of the shuttle was painted in a certain way and the less protected bits that were inside were clearly different looking. I wasn't quite sure what I'd do to them on the next painting round but I was thinking along the lines of dark grey base with drybrushed medium grey. That'd also fit the front/back bits of the shuttle that I had already established.

Now I only had to come up with a plan for the engine ports. In the Return of the Jedi and some games they have been, if my memory served me correctly, bright, cold blue-white. Why not? I could prep the ports with a metallic paint mixed with some white and apply a blue wash on them - but what if the engines were not warm and ready to run? Dark ports (almost anthrazite + metallic effect perhaps) to depict turned-off engines?

Whatever plan would eventually lock itself inside my brain it would not be flat black (#000000), that's for sure. I just wanted to do something else than the oh-so-typical white, because some more contrast in this model would not be wrong.

Yet again I noticed that I had put off this task for ages just to notice that it took, in fact, half an hour of work in total. Maybe admitting to my failings this way semi-publicly could help me behave in the future.