1/144 B-17

Not having built an aircraft for years and years ( I think I had hair down to my shoulders then) I decided to try one again but not having the space thought I'd plump for some 1/144 kits. The B-17 was always my favourite bomber of WWII and I built the Airfix kit back then, so I bought the Minicraft kit. Well, it was not as accurate as I'd hoped and required quite abit of work to it. A lot of the parts (mainly the 2 fuselage halves) don't fit very well, as doesn't the cockpit glass. As there's nothing to see inside I painted these blue/black as this also means you can paint in all the glass that is missing ie the windows over the pilot seats, the rear pilot side windows and the windows where the bombadier and navigator sit. Guns were cut from surgical canulas/drawing up needles and will be attached last. A good option is to provide your aircraft in flight with pins provided to attach your "spinning" props to the nacelles, which is what I intend to do. I'll get some pictures up soon.
I noticed in a picture that that some B-17s had anti-glare Olive Drab painted on half of their nacelles so I decided to paint this on just to provide a bit of contrast with the silver. I still have some black to paint along the wing edges and then the decals and guns and I'll call it done. Here are a few progress pics so far.

I'm calling this done now. It's not really been a pleasure to build more a bind to be truthful. I was going to add a wash and some weathering but to be honest I couldn't be bothered. The decals were dreadful and very thick and didn't settle down well even with decal fix. You get red bands for the wings and tail fins, but because they're so thick they wont conform to the wings properly so I ditched these and tried to mask and paint them myself. It actually looks better in the pictures than in real life. I've not been put off 1/144 aircraft, on the contrary, I have a couple of B-52s, a B-24 and a B-29 in the stash waiting.

I had a go at making the props in flight but this needs more work for the next one. The props are too thick and too dark. They should be more of a thin, faint "V" shape than an actual prop shape. I might actually cut out the V shape next time and leave a longer curved bit along the outer edge for the yellow.