Before applying the decals I did a pin wash into the joins on the wings and tail. I used AK-Interactive’s Grey Wash for Kriegsmarine Ships (AK 303) for this step. While not the intended subject for this range, I find this wash is good for light grey models and so perfect for the E-8C. Because this is an enamel wash you have quite a while to work with it and get it where you want. I find dabbing a brush into the cracks and then cleaning excess away with a brush damp with white spirit is a good way of bringing out the cracks without changing the underlying base colour.

I ended up using 3 sheets of decals from a couple of different suppliers:

• USAF stars with red bars (Dom’s Decals 300-US-5),
• USAF labels (I-94 Enterprises US-121), and
• USAF & Army letters (I-94 Enterprises LB-101).

There are a lot of decals on each of these sheets of various sizes and I didn’t need most of them, but they are there for future projects. I did end up using the following:

• 4* 30″ stars from 300-US-5 (two on the fuselage and one on each wing),
• 2* 18″ USAF labels from US-121 (one on each wing),
• 2* 12″ U.S. AIR FORCE labels from US-121 (both on the fuselage), and
• 2* 15″ GA from LB-101 (both on the tail).

To finish things off a tiny amount of black pigment was streaked behind each engine and then wiped off. This process left just a small amount of black behind the engines.

With that this build is complete. The base is nothing special, just a clear base with a magnet to hold the plane. Overall this has been a fun little build; probably a little overboard given the off table nature of the model. However, I’m quite happy with how it turned out and it’s nice to have a model with a little heft, even if it is still intimidated by an AA battery.