Santa's coming by stealth. The B-2 Christmas bomber.

[seadude]

Been doing some thinking on the colors I want for this bird. The B-2 will be painted most likely overall Vallejo spray can # 28.023 Bloody Red. Vallejo also has a spray can # 28.016 Scarlet Red, but my thinking is this might be slightly too dark. I'd rather go with a "brighter and more cheerful" red instead of having a darker red. As for small touchups and missed spots that I might have to do via a paint brush, Vallejo does make both colors in smaller bottles in their Game Air color line. 
And you can't have Christmas red without Christmas green. The bomber won't have any green on it. But as I may have said elsewhere in this thread, I want to hopefully create an airfield diorama and have airfield equipment and vehicles on the tarmac around the bomber. Those vehicles and equipment will be painted Christmas green with occasional red, silver, gold, etc. highlights. I just don't know if I want a brighter shade of green or a darker shade of green?
The leading edge of the bomber will be painted a gold color. Most pictures that you see of Santa's sleigh on the Net tend to show his sleigh with gold colored trim and accents.
Wheel wells and weapon bays will be painted white.
Not sure what to paint the landing gear struts? Either keep them white or paint them silver or gold?
Engine exhaust areas on the bomber are standard black and jet exhaust colors.
Santa doesn't have any markings on his sleigh when looking at sleigh pictures on the Net. So why should the bomber either? However..........real Air Force B-2's tend to have the name of the aircraft and/or other unit markings on the outside of the main landing gear doors (See picture below). It's possible I may put some sort of markings there for my Christmas bomber. Not sure yet. Otherwise, the only other markings the bomber will have are the emergency ejection markings near the canopy and/or roof ejection seat hatches.
Vallejo color reference charts located here:
https://acrylicosvallejo.com/en/hobby-color-charts/

[seadude]

Question:

Been working on my Christmas B-2 yesterday and today. Now most (but not all) Christmas colors tend to be bright and vibrant, especially reds and greens. I had to use Vallejo Game Air color # 76.010 Bloody Red to paint the insides of the engine inlets. But it took about 3-4 coats just to cover the gray plastic to make sure that the gray plastic was not visible under the red.
Now the majority of the wings and fuselage will be painted Vallejo # 28.023 Bloody Red spray can paint which supposedly matches the number of the smaller bottle I previously mentioned.
To get a really good bright and vibrant red all over the wings and fuselage, plus make sure I get even coverage so that the gray kit plastic isn't viewable under the red, should I first spray paint the model with an overall coat of white primer first? Then lay down the red? Would that help make the red more brighter and vibrant? The gray kit plastic is like a medium gray color. Almost like the color of gunship gray paint, but maybe slightly lighter.

[Rick Lowe]

I'd use white as an undercoat, something to lighten the colour is a definite must.

There is another option I've read about on here, but can't recall it at the moment. Something to deepen the colour; green maybe?

[scautomoton]

Apparently, the best primer for a vibrant red is pink. But I have read that yellow primer can give a striking result too.

[seadude]

Due to the ongoing issue between Imgur and the UK, I have gone back through the majority of my posts in this model thread and re-edited them and used this website forum's picture upload feature to re-add my model pictures in most of my posts. Hopefully, you can all see them now...........unless you live in the Arctic, Antarctica, on the moon, or another planet. 

[Rick Lowe]

Or Dimension... 


According to Buckaroo Banzai, there're at least 8... 

[seadude]

I'm finally calling it quits on all the puttying and sanding. I've gotten all the seams on the top and bottom of this bird at least 98.999999% and I think that's the best I'm going to be able to do. Spray can painting this bird won't happen till next Spring when the weather gets warmer and I can open the windows for fresh air. So for the winter time, the only things I can work on are smaller diorama stuff like the figures, airfield equipment, presents, armament, and a few other things.

[Rick Lowe]

A good laugh there, thanks.
 

[PR19_Kit]

That's slightly less putty than I used on mine, but only slightly!

A handy diagram for those inlets, thanks. 

[seadude]

That's slightly less putty than I used on mine, but only slightly!

A handy diagram for those inlets, thanks. 

How much putty did you use?
So far, my tube of Perfect Plastic Putty was originally about 1/2 full before I started work on the B-2. Now it's down to 1/4 full.
A tube of Bondo automotive putty is 1/3 to 1/2 of the way down from being full.
A tube of Squadron Green Putty is 1/2 down from being full.
And I used a almost a whole bottle (1 oz.) of gap filling super glue.

[PR19_Kit]

I use Presto, same stuff as Dizzy does, and I believe it's unknown in the USA. It's almost unknown in UK too, and Thomas has helped me greatly with it a few times. 

I think I used a whole tube of it, but it was a long while ago now.

[seadude]

It's a pretty crappy weekend right now with a snowstorm dumping anywhere from 8 to 12 inches of snow between now and Sunday morning.
So I'm not going anywhere and have decided to stay indoors where it's warm and do a bit of work on the airfield equipment for my Christmas bomber diorama.
I'll probably highlight the equipment with some silver or gold accents.

[seadude]

Got some vehicles and trailers done from a Hasegawa weapon loading set. How much more ground equipment I plan to build for my B-2 Christmas bomber diorama, I don't know yet. Let me know if you think there's any changes I should make. Painting 1/72 scale figures isn't going to be great. With my eyesight, they'll probably look "cheap" if you know what I mean. I won't be able to detail them too intricately.

[kerick]

Well, you have to load presents somehow! Will the ground crew be wearing elf hats?
Looking good!

[seadude]

Well, you have to load presents somehow! Will the ground crew be wearing elf hats?
Looking good!

I actually thought about it. But I haven't figured out a way to add them. And I probably won't as 1/72 scale is too small for my eyesight.