WhatIfRebel, I really like this “fictional carrier” project of yours and I hope that you can find answers to your questions. I have some aircraft carrier kits in my stash that I hope to do soon. The blue looks good along with the scratching building you’ve done.
If you are going to use a brush for the lines (too much masking for a rattle can), then the Tamiya tape is your friend. Multiple steps involved, since you have at least two colors and both “vertical” and “horizontal” lines/boxes to paint. I might thin it down a tad so that it is a little “streaky” in spots - to simulate the worn paint from heavy use.
Or fill it in, seal the deck with clear, then weather the whole deck.
Or both.
Carrier builders can chime in here also.
Bob
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On another model forum I go to, someone posted the following when I was asking for advice.
QUOTE: “Paint the deck white, run strips of tape for the stripes, spray the grey and then remove the tape. Presto white stripes, go back and tape off for the yellow areas and use a brush to apply the yellow.”
After thinking about it, that probably sounds like what I may end up doing as that seems to be the best option.
I went to a model contest yesterday to ask and get more opinions on painting my flight deck. Sadly, I never got much of a chance to talk to people as everybody was busy talking about their own models at the contest. I did talk to my modeling friend that I went with to the contest and he pretty much agreed about doing the flight deck as I quoted above.
Below are some sample pics I took of items painted with the dark grey I’ll be using for the flight deck. The flight deck will be mainly spray can painted, then I’ll use a small bottle of Vallejo paint for touchups and missed spots, etc.
The first two pics below are at different angles and slightly different lighting conditions. Do both paints look the same to you guys, or does the elevator pieces look like they may be just a tad “slightly” darker than the larger sheet styrene piece? Sometimes, smaller bottles of Vallejo paint don’t exactly match up to larger spray cans and vice versa.
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I think that in the first photo, the elevator pieces appear darker than the sheet of styrene and in the second photo they appear very close to each other. In photo #3 they look identical to me.
Well, it’ll be awhile yet before I paint the flight deck as I need to buy a few more supplies.
So in the meantime, I guess I might as well start work on painting all the aircraft for the carrier. I could use advice on the correct colors for all these aircraft. I’m mainly using Vallejo Model Air colors. So if you know the right shades and bottle numbers that would be good to use, I’d appreciate it. Are most aircraft an “overall” color? Or do some aircraft have a different shade for the top than what the bottom of the aircraft would have? Most (but not all) of these aircraft come from blue boxed Trumpeter aircraft sets which don’t really have good painting/marking instructions or lack thereof.
There are some times where I feel like I should just give up on this project. This is one of those times. 
I did a test with putting just the US national insignia roundels on two F-18’s and nothing else. To say it looks like crap is an understatement.
I wished the roundels were “slightly” bigger, but what you see on the aircraft below is all I’ve got to work with at home.
There is a website that makes aftermarket airwing decals here:
…but at anywhere from $25-75+ per sheet, that can get to be quite expensive.
In some other comments I made on a different forum website:
So if I only put the national insignia roundel on all the aircraft and nothing else, that REALLY will make my aircraft (and the whole model ship display) look cheap, plain, and boring. So…what else can I do? What alternatives are there? Taking a carrier model to a contest with an empty flight deck is going to look pretty damn pathetic.
Though I have seem some people do it. The second picture below is from the IPMS Nationals that I went to last year. Somebody built a Gerald Ford carrier, but only added about half a dozen aircraft. I suppose I could do something similar, but it’s still going to look pathetic.
The other option is the last picture below. But this time, I could build and display the carrier, but leave the flight deck empty. And only put a small display of 9 or so aircraft in front of the carrier to give the impression of what types of aircraft the carrier could carry.
I’m stuck.
Not putting on a lot of decals on all the aircraft makes them look cheap, plain, and boring.
Not putting a lot of aircraft on the flight deck or only a few makes the carrier look cheap, plain, and boring.
What other options are there?
One suggestion that I have for anything Naval is to either listen to or write in to the “Model Geeks” model podcast. The five hosts are all ex-Navy guys who build primarily U.S. Naval aircraft and they should be able to answer any questions that you have about your Naval builds.