The "Cat from Hell" work: Eduard 1/72.

This is how the finished thing looks. The hangar deck catapult base is made from styrene sheet, I think it is a nice display for the Hellcat. I remade the antenna wire, added the missed pitot probe and made the light blue a little brighter with diluted white oil paint to enhance the contrast with the dark blue. I think that the whole thing looks better now.

Diego Quijano.

 

This F6F-3 Hellcat is a magnificent kit from Eduard (thanks Jindra). I wanted to try some heavy weathering with this little one and no spend much time detailing so it is built straight from the box.

I only added the barrels of the machine guns made from metallic tube, the antenna wire made with stretched sprue and the landing gear wires also from stretched sprue. 

Oh, and I riveted the surface with the spur riveter, as usual.

The dark blue is painted with several transparent layers of much diluted paint, that was an idea I had after a conversation with Mark Smith about dark schemes (thanks Mark).

The degraded paint effects are mainly airbrushed, is amazing the fine effects that you can get with Tamiya paints diluted with lacquer thinner and a 0.2mm nozzle.

The undersurface is entirely painted with airbrush. As usual, this zone is hard to appreciate, so I exaggerated the weathering to get a noticeable effect.

The dirt effects on the upper surface are made with enamel products (AK, pigments, and so).

The new antenna wire made from thinner stretched sprue works better than the old.

The hangar deck base. The pipes under the deck floor are entirely fictitious. Any resemblance to the real thing is purely coincidental. It is just a way to decorate that zone.

A picture just to make the size comparison...