She looks very good! I bet some of those Wildcats on Guadalcanal looked just about like that in the conditions at that place. I built one of these Academey F4Fs myself several months ago, and like you I am still learning. I didn’t weather it too much, but I did the following to it and I think it looks ok. If your interested it’s here:
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I should mention I use acrylics becasue they are easy to clean and don’t have the strong odor of enamels. After spraying the blue and light gray colors using the airbrush, I let it dry overnight and sprayed Future floor polish over it to make a nice surface for the decals. In some cases, you can omit the Future spray and just brush future over your decal with a brush. It works ok for me, but you don’t have much time to place it as the future starts to dry quickly.
Let dry several hours and then add your weathering. Lightly is best, and as was stated earlier, less is better. I did my panel lines using a mechanical pencil and ran it along the recessed panel lines. I didn’t press hard, just enough that the pencil line was visible. You can carefully erase if you make a mistake (the model is even more protected if you spray Future over all of it, so in most cases a Futrue spray is an advantage). Make sure you carefully slice through the decals with a sharp blade along panel lines or other recessed areas first though. The pencil is pretty unforgiving if it hits a decal not completely recessed, and it can really tear it up.
You can the shave a pastel stick into a fine powder with a blunt knife, and collect the powder in a small cup (soda bottle caps are great). I swirl into this a cotton swab and carefully and lightly run it over areas of the plane that are to be stained (behind engine, guns, exhaust vents, etc.). But try it on some scrap plastic the first time; you may have to rub the swab a few times on something before actually applying the pastel on the plan (it may be too dark initially). You can even give a light swab on some of the panel lines you want to further accentuate. Try it and see what you prefer.
After a few hours, when the weathering is done, you really need to spray with a dull or semi-dull coat. This does several things: it protects your pastel application, seals the decals, protects the entire paint job, and finally gives the model a more realistic appearance where the decals look painted on and the weathering is enhanced (the pencil application is a bit shiny, and this must be dealt with, or everything looks off). After all this, I add the final small pieces that otherwise may get broken (antennas, etc.)
A lot of people here do a much better job at modeling than myself, and their work looks fantastic. I’m working on getting to that level. But these steps work for me. Most builders also prefer to use a different process to enhance the panel lines (I believe adding a bit of thinner to the pastel dust until it is well wetted and then they let it run into the panel lines by capillary action. They then wipe off the excess, leaving the panel line enhanced. Some prefer darkened, well-defined panel lines, while others do a very light application. However, if you do this, you must spray the whole model with Future so the paint job is well protected from the continual applying and cleaning).
Hope this helps!
