Painting parts before assembly; some common sense advice.

When I am building larger scale Airplanes and Jets it is often desirable to paint large areas such as the main feusalage, wing assemblies and nacell pods, once they have been assembled. In the case of patterns of camoflague, I usually wait until the entire plane has been pieced together so the "Flow" or continuity of the pattern is not compramised. Although I have suprised myself a couple of times by eyeing up the lines start and end points on a particular piece before installing it, there can be slight irregularities in the final appearance, as if something is a bit off, and can spoil an otherwise flawless design.

One of the best reasons for waiting till the end to paint larger sub assemblies is that the final prep is usually complete, and no touching-up along seams or gaps is necessary. Although often unavoidable, re-painting joins, pattern transformations, or glue damaged paint is more likely to cause uneven color, noticable transitions and even sloppy looking finishes.

Nothing freaks me out more than having to clean up, re-mask and paint a section of an otherwise successful paint detail job, *Especially if you have to re-mix the color you used before! Ahead of  re-painting an area, allways check instruction sheet for decal placement as you may get lucky and not have to fix the area if it's covered. Depending on your style and attention to detail, weathering and age spots can often help mask imperfections, a good thing for the less experienced modeler to remember.They also add to realism. Exhaust coloring, canon flash soot,  tire rubber residue and oil staining are some examples.

No Brainer tip #1
*Whenever I mix paint for a project, I usually figure out how much I will need and double the recipe. This has saved my tail on more than one occassion, and the use of extra paint (= extra $) is worth far more than the price of a new bottle if you mess up and need more.