I found this Hasegawa P-51D for sale at work for $5.00. I used the price savings to purchase some aftermarket decals. The rest of the kit was straight out of the box. I tried to find a way to deepen the wheel wells, which are obviously too shallow, but was unsuccessful. Instead I used a darker wash to give an illusion of depth. I think it turned out good enough.
I cut out and repositioned the rudder, elevators, and flaps to add some visual interest. The process was not difficult; only the flaps took some rebuilding using some sprue and sheet styrene for the forward edges and inner surfaces.
The most difficult part of this model was the paint scheme. I chose the scheme thinking that it would be fairly simple because it had less bare metal surfaces. Boy, was I wrong. I didn't realize how much masking would be required and having decals covering both metal and painted surfaces turned out to be a nightmare to deal with. Lucky for me that the decal sheet had enough decals to make two aircraft because I ruined a few decals in the the whole process.
Despite the difficulty in finishing the model, I love the way it turned out. I especially like the faded OD next to the freshly painted OD on the invasion stripes on the wing tops. I think it gave a good weathering effect. I learned a lot about scratch building and painting with this model and I think that it turned out to be one of my favorites so far. Not bad for a $5.00 kit.
