acepilot2 said:comments? I need some constructive criticism, I want it to be as accurate and visually appealing as possible.
wings, tail, are done and cockpit is 1/2 done.
Looks like you're off to a good start but I do have some constructive criticism. My POV here based on my experience building and repairing airplanes in the real world so I think it's good advice. Do with it as you will.
Faded Paint: IMHO, the paint should be a lot less transparent and a lot more like the fresh paint in the actual photo. Most aiplane paint is pretty good, long-lasting stuff and doesn't weather like you have it done there. IMHO you shouldn't be seeing the silver through it, nor should it have such wide, curly "brush marks". It chips, but mostly from were people walk on it (around the cockpit and gunbays), with a little more chipping on parts of the leading edges. It fades a bit, but it takes years for that to get really noticeable. In WW2, this P51D would only have been a few months old.
However, remember how you did this because that look would be great for other things. For instance, pre-WW2, they often painted silver planes with water-based OD camo temporarily for exercises. Temporary paint was also applied to other planes during the war. This stuff came off very much like you've done it here.
Panel Lines and Rivets: IMHO, the stock skins don't do the panel lines very well on painted planes, making them look like trenches. In real life, however, the gap between the skin panels was almost always filled with putty, both to smooth the airflow and keep out water. Thus, when the plane was painted, the panel lines were nearly invisible for fixed panels. You should just have hints of them that are visible only at close range. You'd only really see panel lines around removeable panels like engine cowlings and gunbays. Look at the actual photo--all you can see are the gunbays.
Fasteners on most WW2 planes were also nearly invisible on painted planes. This is because they were countersunk flush with the skin and painted over. The only ones that were really noticeable normally were the big screws and dzus fasteners holding down removeable panels. For this reason, where the plane is painted, you really don't have to bother with doing the rivets (unless it's an old plane with domehead rivets).
On unpainted planes, however, things are different. The putty between the fixed panels was usually black, so gave each silver panel thin black border. However, flush rivets are still very hard to see from a distance because they're almost the same color as the skin. They're only really noticeable under certain lighting conditions, because the rivet heads are cocked at a very slight angle to the skin, so sometimes have a tiny bit more light or shadow on them.
So at the bottom line, my main advice would be to thicken up the paint to make it look like a smoother coat and also to hide the panel lines almost entirely.
