Thanks. Sure has been fun, I'm getting kind of sad that it's nearing the end. I don't think I can muster up any more ways to extend it, unless I want to add a lot more bolt decals.I'll echo what was said a long way back - what a great build, I can't believe it took me so long to find this!
The nose cone was my test piece to see if the paint was smooth enough to provide a good decal surface. It seems to be. I was prepared to gloss coat the rocket before decals if need be, but as as far as I can tell it is not necessary. The main bits that remain visible are the edges, and those are due to decal thickness rather than the underlying paint surface.Although it can make for a bunch of extra steps, if you do any more builds with decals like this you may find that the clear parts disappear better (and will certainly adhere better) when put down on a gloss surface instead of a flat one. You're going to over-coat it with flat anyways, right? The tricky part with this is finding military colours in a gloss finish, otherwise you need to paint, gloss-coat, decal, then dull-coat.
It's possible it would have done slightly better if I had gloss coated first. We'll see how the whole thing looks after flat coating. Right now I'm fairly optimistic.
When I thought about it, the real thing is certainly glossy glass, so no reason to be flat there. I had originally thought the lack of reflection on the surface might have made it easier to see inside, but it's OK as is. The biggest issue, if you can call it that, is that the plastic dome is low quality and creates a lot of distortion when looking through.Another thought on the finish for the dome - you may come to appreciate the way a gloss finish on the dome compared with a dull finish on the rest of the model helps to draw attention to all the wonderful work you put there.
If you tell me the diameter you're looking for I might be able to direct you to some better options. Finding that particular toy is likely to be extremely difficult or impossible (it was only after several Dollar Stores across months of searching that I found it). Or, if you happen to need that particular diameter (slightly more than 1"), I can send you a few of my leftovers. Let me know.Thanks as well for posting the source on those clear domes. I'm going to have to take a look around and see if I can find something similar for the "XBT cover" on my 1/2 scale TOW.