Hi Everyone,
I would like to have your opinions please. First let me say this is nowhere near done and is still in progress. I am attempting to do some hard core Japanese aircraft weathering on my Zero. I did a little bit on my Corsair but nothing on this scale before. This is kind of scary totally messing up a really nice paint job.
There are some of the silver areas, especially on the insignias, that I am going to tone down a little bit. Plus I am also going to add some rust here and there, along with gun smoke and exhaust damage.
I value your opinions and advice. Be honest but please be gentle
These are kind of quick and not all that great of pics but they show pretty good what I am doing so far.
Thanks everyone and are there any further progress on any of the rest of the group
Wayne

It's looking good so far !
Still, I'm not 100% convinced by the shape of the "aluminium spots". From the pictures I've seen, japanese paint seemed to go off by chips, and not weather down to let aluminium show through.
But, I've been studying pictures of army and not navy planes.
Also, chipping will begin where people walk on the plane or touch the plane a lot : wing root, around cowling panels... around all kind of panels that are frequently removed... leading edges...
Some of your aluminium spots look mabe a bit too random while others are very logicaly placed.
Sorry, I don't mean to be harsh because I realy appreciate your work ! Also, I know it's hard, because I'm more or less at the same place with my KI-43 ! And I already know i've overdone the aluminium part... pictures should be coming in a few days.

First of all let me apologise for not getting pics of my Val up, It is coming on very slowly, I will endeavour to post some pics this week end
I am no expert on savere weathering of this nature, but it looks as if you have added the silver after the green. IMHO, this makes the weathering look contrived and unrealistic. My thoughts on this are that the model should receive a coat of aluminium first, the top cots added and then removed, much as pen-pen suggests. It is how you remove the top coat that I haven't fathomed yet, I'm torn between, sanding, lifting (with selotape) or partial removal,with thinners. Then again for this to work, convincingly, the markings would have to be painted on and recieve the same treatment.
Mal

Thanks for the feedback and don't worry about any comments. I want honest opinions and do not take things personally or the wrong way. I have no idea if what I am doing is realistic, half-way realistic or just looks plain wrong. The only way to learn to do better is to ask and get feedback from other modelers who have done this kind of thing before.
My weathering is like I said, a work in progress. And I am going to be changing, fine tuning, and probably refixing things for a while until I am satisfied that what I am doing looks fairly believable.

Mal - You are right about putting the silver on after the green. I had originally thought about painting the zero silver and then painting and chipping the green off afterwards. That is definately more authentic and realistic but doing it that way for me is still a little intimidating and shied away from it this time. I decided to try the dry brushing way this time to see how it worked out for me.

Thanks again for the feedback and anyone else who has suggestions please post them.
Wayne

Wayne, you are a braver man than me, I've only been thinking about doing this, at least you have had a go. Again my thoughts, After applying the silver/NMF if you protect it, say, with Kleer (Future) then apply the Green. When you come to "remove" the green (if you use thinners to wipe it off) you should not damage the silver. Of course you have to take into account the type of paint you are using. If you were to use sellotape, to lift off the green, then this wouldn't damage the silver anyway. The green would actually lift off quite easily, from the silver. The problem with the tape method is that you will have very little control. That is assuming you were to wrap the tape around your finger. If I were to try this method I think I would creat "stamps" from wooden skewers with squared off cross section and double sided tape on the end. The aim being to position the "stramp" where I wanted it. I think I would personally go with the "wipe off with thinner" method, as I would feel more in control.
Mal