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One of my friends is passionate about airplanes, especially WWII warbirds, but unfortunately he is not a modeller, so he asked me to build for him a Mustang for him. We choose the nice Airfix 1/48 kit and I built it OOB with just few scratchbuilt details in the cockpit. I'm quite happy with result even if not perfect. Hope he will like it anyway.... Enjoy pictures and welcome to any comment. Cheers Andy

Having finally got to the point where I have finished the build, I have moved the Revell P-51D Tuskagee from WIP to this thread. 'My First Pony' is the sort of name you'd associate with something out of ToyRUs, (RIP) and it fairly reflects the state of my modelling skills when I started this and my Spit, years ago now. I cannot remember what my last model was; I have a thought that it might have been an Airfix version of HMS Hood, finished in typical school boy fashion complete with fingerprints and a hand painted waterline that was anything but straight. Compared with some of the models out there, this effort is still very amateurish (not the right word, as we're most of us amateurs) but I am quite chuffed that I finished it and it looks more or less like what I wanted it to. I have quite a few comments myself The kit The kit is old. While I bought it a few years ago (about eight), I wasn't expecting the news that it was actually a Monogram kit. When I buy something labelled Revell, I do expect it to be a Revell. As a result, I checked the sprues on the 'Revell' P51-C that I have in my stash. Guess what? It says ICM. The kit has parts that don't fit without work and parts that fit but sloppily. The cockpit looks strange, verified by the fact that the Malcom hood won't close, fouling the back of the seat. The instructions are OK but leave the fitting of the gunsight right to the end and it wouldn't fit, hence a pony without a gunsight. Paint. I was too keen to get it painted and I have a lot to learn about using an airbrush. I've just taken delivery of a tank for use with my Iwata compressor which now means I can control the air pressure. Now I need to develop my skill re applying too much paint in one go. Floor polish. The use of floor polish to protect the finish came as a real surpise, but experience shows it works. Who'd a thought? Decals. I had a real fight with some of the decals. The Warbird decals I used to give the plane a Red Tails personality were very brittle and two of them broke, introducing me to Microscale Liquid Decal Film and I can vouch for the fact that it works. I had trouble getting the decals to conform to the surface in a couple of places and use of Vallejo Decal Softner didn't do much to rectify the situation. Unfortunately, it's not one of those things that you can really practise, but getting it wong can ruin a model. During the application of the decals, some of the aluminum paint crazed. Unfortunately, I can't remember what I did when! Flory. Again, never heard of it until I saw Spadgent's superb build of the same plane in 1/32 scale. I had great fun with that and have probably left too much on. Any US groundcrew seeing the state of this plane would probably have a fit. (Incidentally, I tried to link Spadgent's name, but haven't a clue how to). Exhaust effect. I was going to try using my airbrush but some practice suggested a different approach might be a good idea, so I used some of my wife's pastels. I like the effect, which, unlike my use of Flory, is quite subtle. I've learned soooo much doing this, and owe thanks to those people who have been kind enough to provide encouragement and advice during my travails.

Hi All, I finally crossed the finish line with this build which took the better part of 2+ years on and off with a long hiatus in between due to the arrival of my daughter... I had long started the build before she shattered our idle existence so the scheme I selected turned out to be quite prophetic 😄 In any case the plane is built from the highly regarded old Tamiya 1/48 scale kit, and to be honest there are better kits out there now that are far more detailed out of the box. I made significant modifications to the kit cockpit and scratch built a lot of additional detail to compensate for the fairly basic detailing I started with. I also re-built the incorrect wheel bays from scratch which represented the most significant bit of scratch building I have yet undertaken. Aftermarket bits are limited to a set of Eduard Steel series seatbelts and a Falcon Vacform canopy (also my first time working with these). I used Vallejo Metal Colour acylics for the NMF applied using a multi layer shading technique to generate some subtle variation in the metal finish. I was after a realistically worn dull oxidized look that's seen in period photos. Markings are from a Lifelike Decals set. More details in the build thread linked below. Build Thread Thanks for looking 🙂

So, I have been away for a month or so on business and whilst I was away I got a little self indulgent present delivered After finishing my previous model I decided to challenge myself with a NMF finish and so got the 1:32 Tamiya P51-D Mustang with which to have a go. As I am still a relative newbie I am doing this OOTB..........baby steps....NMF is my next goal.........maybe scratching will come later. I have never attempted NMF before, have purchased some Alclad II black gloss primer along with airframe aluminium and dull aluminium to use on select panels as it seems people like to break up the panels to make it look more realistic.....we'll see how it goes. Got an old Nimrod model that I intend to use as a paint mule and see how easy (or not) it is to get the desired effect. If all else fails I can always go back to the Tamiya rattle cans. So, having had a week or so of very intermittent bench time I have the pit done, still needs to be weathered but I'm reasonably happy with it so far. Also got the engine done and just about ready to join the fuse halves together. Model has gone together well so far, no fit issues so hoping this trend continues as I have had very few fit issues with Tamiya (except those self imposed by not looking at the instructions properly!) So here is how she stands now..........as always, comments and critique most welcome.

Tamiya P51-D Mustang 1:48 scale Eduard Photo Etch for cockpit details. Macro shots taken in the studio with a Canon EOS M3 mirrorless compact camera to which a Canon TS-E 90mm lens and 20mm extension tube was attached via an adapter. Lit with three Canon 600ex-rt flash guns mounted inside a large softbox 600. exposure was 1/60th sec. @ f16 iso 100. The cockpit area is just over 2cm in length. My wife has always loved the P51, and Ferrocious Frankie in particular. So to keep in her good books, this one is for her. Scratches on the seat where the pilot clambers in and out were carefully markes with a sharp silver pencil. The wood effect flooring was grained and weathers with tamiya weathering sets. Flory models wash was applied to give relief. Photo etch was glued with medium superglue and some with gator glue. Here is one of my photos of the real Ferrocious Frankie, on which my model will be based. And on the the images of the cockpit assembly.