Les Mureaux 117, pt. 1

I've been overloaded with work and life lately, but now seem to be finding a bit more time for model building. I pulled this out of the stash last week and started fiddling with it:



I really love inter-war aircraft, and this certainly has a gangly '30s look to it that I find endearing. But actually, I read that it made its debut about the same time as the Spitfire and Hurricane, so it's not quite as ancient as it looks.

I haven't taken any in-progress shots up until today, but today I did quite a bit of work on it and brought it to this point:



Fit is good for the most part, but the cockpit arrangement is a bit different, with a sort of module containing both seats that drops into the fuselage after the fuselage has been joined. The result was some gaps around the sides and back of the rear cockpit, which required some careful puttying:



One thing I rather like about this kit is the industrial look of the rivets, and Heller even did a nice job of giving the skin a stressed look:



And note that the rivets don't really look so prominent in person and without the intentionally directional lighting.

Right now I'm having a hard time deciding which markings to use. One is overall dark green (blah), but with the advantage of a neat looking bare metal engine cowling and classy wheel spats. The other is the interesting multi-color camouflage (as in the box art), but a painted cowling and no spats. Decisions, decisions...

Thanks for looking!

Stuart