Joel - The duck is not so bad for painting and decaling with the top wing attached because it is set quite far forward from the lower wing, meaning that at the right angle, it is really easy to get a paint brush onto the lower wing - will show in progress pics (below) - also, I personally prefer to hand paint these smaller models as oppose to using an airbrush, which does simplify it a bit.
Jonathan - glad my little project has caught your interest, I can see where you are coming from there about the undercarriage, but thankfully it is pretty sturdy on the duck, and also I normally rest the model on a sort of foam cradle when I work on it which does offer some protection for the small, delicate parts but normally I take it away if I need to take pictures because it is a little ugly... anyway here it is, included this time as a demonstration:
Here is that foam cradle thing I was going on about, the Duck's undercarriage fits rather neatly into it, and is pretty well protected by the foam - also, painting is done - this particular scheme is for an OA-12 Duck (as the USAF called it) from the 10th rescue squadron based in Elmendorf, Alaska in 1948.
This just shows the blue central float a bit better, also (as you can see) I have started on the rigging, not an easy job, but looks good it you get it right
This is just intended to show that the lower wing on the duck is pretty easy to paint even when the upper wing is attached due to the fact that it sits quite far back from the upper wing, this picture was taken from roughly my eye height, so you can see what I did when I painted it.
That is all for now, construcyive criticism is very welcome, as always! I will post more pics when the rigging s done.
Cheers
