Thanks gents I appreciate your optimisim.
Now we paint. Good grief... two problems that I had not foreseen. Firstly its a three colour camo job, and secondly it goes on the bottom as well as the top. Double jeopardy.
I started by freehanding the camoshapes using flat black in the air brush.
I thought this might help and provide a little preshading as well. It helped a bit but the preshading idea went out the window pretty fast as the paint covered it up.
Little did I know this was the easy bit. Next came the dreaded blutac worms to provide masking. Since there are three colours this process had to be repeated. Much verbal abuse ensued until something vaguely ressembling what I was going for emerged.
Not completely rubbish but not what I was hoping for. Touchup will be the order of the day and then guess what....? I get to do it all again on the even more complicated bottom. Oh much joy.
I am trusting to the weathering to save the day.
John