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I'm working on a FW Thunderhawk (because I figured the only way to get them to release the plastic one would be to pay for the resin one...) and I'm at a stage where I'm debating finishing the main assembly, and then painting it, or paintinging several of the larger sections separately, and then assembling it.

I already painted the cockpit, and assembled the front half of the fuselage. The parts that I'm considering doing separately are:

Wings
Attack Wings
Front Fuselage
Back fuselage
Tail & Rear Engine

Parts that will definitely be painted separately:
Weapon mounts & missiles
Cockpit canopy


So far, my dilemma is based around the following:


- It's large and heavy. If I paint the sections separately, it will be considerably easier to manipulate and do detail work on.

- The parts don't all fit together perfectly. If I assemble it first, I can more-easily use greenstuff to fill in gaps.
- If I assemble it all first, I can better determine where the balance point is for the flying stand.

Anyone have any opinions about the pros/cons of these approaches that I may not have considered?

What I would do, and have done is paint in parts so the task isn't cumbersome and awkward.

Then assemble it and greenstuff. Then simply re-paint over areas that suffered from the assembly.

You keep the majority of your painting and detail, then only need to touch up the seams/glue damage. I'm aware if you're an extremely meticulous hobbyist you may not get the same exact tint or brush stroke work or layer, etc, etc, but I'm not that intense so this method works just fine for me, and it's almost not noticeable by others unless they were part of the assembly or have very experienced eyes.