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F14A Tomcat - PART TWO

3.
With the overall base color fully dried, I start painting the major areas of other colors.

On the Tomcat, these are the black instrument faces, the black side consoles, the gray ballistic curtains on the cockpit side walls, the black tops of the instrument panel hoods, the dark gray of the canvas boots covering the instrument hoods, and some of the major wiring and tubes running around the cockpit (like the pilots' oxygen hoses).

Here is where a small variation in colors can go a long way in adding interest to the cockpit. Rather than using true black on the instrument faces, I use Testors Interior Black. Years ago, Pactra made a similar color they called Scale Black. Both of these are actually extremely dark gray colors. Once all the instrument panels are painted in one of these colors, I come back and pick off a few odd panels and instruments in true black. I pick off a few others in a dark gray like Engine Gray (F.S.36076), European-I Gray (F.S.36081), or even Black-Gray (RLM 66). As the instrument panels are truly just a patchwork of adjoining panels, this helps break up their "one-ness" and hints that they are each removable (which they are in the real aircraft). Do not overdo the variations, though. Too much variation makes the cockpit to busy.

At this point, do not get concerned if the paint looks too "uneven" or the sheen is off. The upcoming steps will correct this. Because of a varying sheen in the paint, I have painted dark gray and true black side-by-side and had them look like the same color. I fought the urge to be more drastic in my color choices and was rewarded after gloss and flat coating to see the colors were just subtly different and really improved the look of the cockpit. With practice, I learned which colors work well together and trust my past experience in painting the cockpits.