1 100 Bandai FRX-00 Mave Step by Step Modeling Guide by WM Cheng

1/100 Bandai Yukikaze FRX-00 Mave Step by step modeling guide by WM Cheng August 22, 2003 – September 2, 2003 (compiled from the www.MacrossWorld.com thread)

Okay, where were we, special thanks goes out to Shawn for this great new board - he'll be transferring the other pages to this thread so that we can have 1 complete thread for this model This is an easy kit to put together, not too many pieces, as you can see here, all the main assemblies is put together in 3-4 hours. The sanding and finishing is the difficult part. You can see that this kit includes a fairly detailed cockpit tub for a 1/100 scale model. I wish it were 1/72 scale - this model is a bit on the small side.

What is nice about the snap together assembly is that all the major parts can be assembled separately to allow for painting and sanding. Here is the nose section; the underside is a real "dogs-breakfast". Luckily is underneath, all the grey is Tamiya putty to seal up the large gaps due to the nature of the snap-fit construction.

Be really careful with this thin part that slides into the top of the fuselage - as you can see here I snapped my - its thin and delicate.

Here you see after an hour of sanding to work the contours back together on that broken piece, the light grey stuff is Mr. Surfacer 500 I painted in the cracks to help fill the seam.

Another real trouble spot is the seam around the rear tail cones. It’s in a really tight place to sand off, and off-course the fit is all that great. I snipped off all the locating pegs for the snap fit assembly to try to slide the top and bottom halves of the fuselage to try to minimize the seam gaps.

Finally I had to paint several layers of Mr. Sufacer 500 over the entire seam area and let dry. Afterwards I used a 600 grit sandpaper to try to sand it off, with the rubber grips and small pieces glued to thin pieces of wood so that I can get into this tight area. What you see (light grey) that is left of the Mr. Surfacer is all the sections that don't really mate up with the top or bottom halves.

The other side is better aligned - but this is the part I have little patience for. Sanding and more sanding. It’s the most boring part of the process, but it’s also the most important part - unfortunately it is usually the part that I scrimp on. They saw you should work your way up from 600 to 3000 grit but usually I only do 600 and then maybe a rub down at 1500.

Here's a close up of the repair job on the broken nose piece - after appropriate sanding (40mins).

I noticed that the cockpit tub is silver - well, I don't really like the Tamiya silver - I find that the silver particles/grain is too large and especially on such a small aircraft it would look really odd. I thought this might be the opportunity I try some of the metallizers out there. After visiting several local hobby shops - I was recommended (also it seems to be the only consistently available stuff) this UK made Alclad II Lacquer. It is already pre-thinned for airbrush use/only. I saw a sample that blew me away at the local hobby store. However, now I need a new thinner/solvent which will work with lacquers - I bought Mr. Color thinner which works with this stuff. Because its Lacquers, you need a well ventilated space and I put on a breathing mask when I airbrush this stuff - it is really fine metal particles that I'm sure can't be healthy for you

I left a bunch of parts on the sprue to be painted white. I find it more convenient this way to hold them. I inspected them, and most of the sprue attachment points are hidden after assembly - with the odd exception that I will touch up after I snip them away.

Here's a critical seam that I thought I just had to get perfect. Its right at the nose where everyone will see it and it’s a complex curve going into a sharp edge. Beautiful design, but a bitch to sand and a really poor place to put a seam (do you hear me Bandai). I used that Alcad primer, it’s wonderful stuff - goes on like glass. They suggest a lower airbrushing pressure to 12-15psi for this stuff, but it is really good at pointing out flaws that were missed.

The primer shows that I did an okay job at eliminating the seam at the tail cone area - not great since I can still see hints of it. But the real thing to this bird is the complex painting scheme - I didn't want to blow all my effort here. So it’s good enough for now. I'm sure I'll regret it after I finish but I'm just too anxious to move on!!

Since that snap was a clean break, I thought that I would leave the line in as a panel line detail and fill all around it and make sure the top surface was flush.

I only sprayed the primer over the areas I thought I needed some sanding or filing to see where the flaws are, I guess I should have primed the entire plane - just lazy I guess. But since the overall colours are dark, it’s not as important to get an even undercoat as light colours require.

The primer grey really shows off how complicated the nose section geometry is.

Here's the cockpit tub and pod. Its really nice that they decided to have it as two separate pieces so it’s really simple to paint one part (Pod) silver and detail the cockpit insert. The cockpit insert was painted dark grey overall, with metallic grey for the instrument panels and olive for the seats and a tan headrest (although the latter can hardly be seen once the pilots are fitted). The pilots are painted white with grey accents and a dark grey oxygen mask. I used Tamiya transparent blue for the visors and a black Gundam marker to draw in the blast visor on top of the helmet. These were all hand brushed since they were so small and I did a black wash to pick out the recesses and a light dry rushing to pick out the raised details. The pod was sanded first, then painted a glossy black as the undercoat as per the instructions for the Polished Aluminum AlcladII Lacquer. I think it works much like a mirror, with the black surfaces reflecting the metal particles. Boy, I was really happy with the metal finish It looks grainy in the photo, but it really looks metallic in real life. My camera, in Macro mode, picks up everything. The grey cutting mat that everything is sitting on looks like sandpaper, but you know that they are generally smooth.

Here is a test fit of the canopy - thank God I don't have to fill any seams here!!

Here's a better shot - Bandai provided an exceptionally clear and flawless piece of plastic. This is without the future floor wax yet; note how perfect the reflection is already.

I decided to tint this canopy as well to better match my other Yukikaze Superslyph and to look more like the Platz resin model. Plus while the cockpit is fairly detailed, it’s not that fantastic and it would take forever to properly detail something this small - plus there is precious little reference around for these planes.

I tinted the canopy with Tamiya Smoke colour airbrushed through and several layers of future floor polish to even out the pebbly finish the Smoke colour left behind. I find that this tinting leaves hints of the pilots inside while obscuring the lack of detail - in fact it looks like there is more detail than there was under the canopy.

I decided to paint this Mave in the greenish grey colours that I have seen in the anime and the few pieces of web reference I have seen. I don't know why all the paint instructions and that 2 page Model Graphix insist on a bluish grey version of the plane. It’s not what I saw in the anime. I took the colours off the DVD box art of the "feminine" guy in the red jacket and the top view of the FRX-00. Here the top of the aircraft is painted the dark grey with a hint green and neutral grey. I mixed the paint by eye.

This will be the darkest grey on the aircraft, looking at the pattern of masking that I will have to do, I decided it was easier to mask from the dark colour working my way to the white being painted last on top of everything else. The metallic "Polished Aluminum" did not have to be polished - and this was what I was told that this paint had the advantage over other metallizers that have to be polished - because you don't polish it, it’s much harder and doesn't come off on your fingers afterwards. You don't even have to seal it in with a clear coat if you don't want to. But I did anyways.

The underside was a mixture of Tamiya Sky Grey (75%) with White (10%) and some Green (15%) The shine you see is a Clear Coat of Model Master Semi-gloss.

I just couldn't wait to pop in that cockpit pod for a look-see.

Here's the piece with the nose section back on - I love the way this thing is designed. Looks like that’s it for tonight - more updates later...

Here's a close up of the front cockpit nose section and how it all fits together. The nice thing is that once its together it’s still all removable.

Here's a shot underneath showing the metallic finish on the cockpit pod and the intricate intake fins all around the nose area.

This shot shows the cockpit pod in the position to be accessed by ground crew, there is a separate piece included in the kit that mounts in the fuselage rails that will keep the pod in this position (removable of course).

I am masking the dark green for the underside here. I just found out now that I should not have glued the main underside intake, it would of made painting this central green strip easier. Now I have to carefully mask around the intakes.

Here's the top pattern for the lighter shade of grey/green. My Tamiya masking tape supply is hurting after this bird

Here's the pattern – it’s pretty complicated since the instructions are mono-chrome - so I had to rely on some web references too. Overall I am very happy with the colours that turned out. There is a really nice differentiation between the two grey greens right now - however, its weird, but later on, when I clear coat this layer of painting with the same glossy sheen, it darkens the lighter green so the contrast is not as high as this. I might after all the decals are done, re-mask these areas and spray them with a flat clear-coat to pop it out again - wish me luck.

Here's the shot of the underside - its weird that the underside of the forward nose section is also this lighter grey-green - I've checked in a few places to confirm. It seems to defeat the lighter grey of the belly sky camouflage.

This is the masking for the light grey panels. I used Tamiya Sky Grey for these areas - however in hindsight, it should be a darker shade - perhaps a mixture of neutral grey and sky grey because the background green is still considerably darker and sets up too high of a contrast in my opinion. I am hoping that subsequent weathering will tone it down a bit - but it’s hard - since this is a relatively new aircraft - there shouldn't be much weathering right?

Here is a close up of the light grey panels with all the little corners and intricate shapes. I really think there should have been a decal made for this. Boy it really tells you how spoiled we are from Hasegawa kits I finally remembered to drill out the cannon port. Its the same process as with the other Yukikaze kit or the Valkyrie intake vernier, I use a small pin vise with a small bit, then work my way up to a bit that is the appropriate size. This gun port is a bit trickier since its show shallow - you want a hole that is almost parallel with the surface of the fuselage - in the end it gives an oblong elliptical shape. I did this by drill down a bit - which creates a cavity for the larger drill bit to sit in, then slowly work my way to a horizontal position with the drill bit. This way, there is less likelihood of the drill bit slipping and scratching across your fuselage when it’s in the horizontal position.

This shows that patch underneath the nose. The molded vertical fin is a bit thick - I could of chopped it off and made another one from a thinner styrene - or I took the lazy man's approach and carefully shaved with an exacto knife the leading edges to look thinner at the edges.

Here you can see how the lighter grey-green has blended with the background darker grey-green Damn! I couldn't tell until after the gloss/semi-gloss coat was applied - I guess the original colour made such a contrast because of the finish. The glossier something is, it does tend to be darker, and the flatter/matte something is, it tends to be lighter - must remember this in the future.

Here's the masking for the metallic steel colour. I love this Alclad stuff. I have found that if I left those little four fins around the engine area, it will make painting this area easier.

I've decided to deviate a little more from the established colour scheme of the Mave. I've noticed that the Platz resin model on display at the Wonderfest had a metallic engine grey/steel on the top of the aircraft as well. So I thought I would follow suit, any chance to show off the Alclad more. I am using the Alclad Steel colour for these areas.

Boy is this stuff great!! However, it really exposes and accentuates any flaws.

Especially when you take a step back, the metallic shine is second to none - and still holds up quite well under a clear-coat layer of semi-gloss. However, you still need to make sure the sub-surface is perfect - after seeing the results, it’s easier to spend that little bit of extra time sanding to get a perfect surface (oh well - now I regret that I didn't spend enough time sanding - next time). They sometimes suggest a layer of future acrylic floor polish before you spray this metalizer stuff on. And when you see the smooth spots that the paint hits, it really shines!! Ok, I know some of you guys use the Future on the rest of the model, not just the canopy. My question to you is, how do you thin the paint down for the airbrush, and secondly, what thinner/solvents do you use to clean out your airbrush afterwards?

Here's the shot of the top surface with the engines in the steel colour instead of just plain dark green. OK, so what do think? Is it "blasphemy" to go against anime, or maybe this scheme is valid too? The lighter grey-green blending into the darker grey-green still bugs me!

I am airbrushing flat black in a fine spray width here to trace around the tail cone details to make it look kind of burnt (the right side is done - the left hasn't been touched yet). These deep crevasses will be great later when I do a black oil wash to further pick out the individual afterburning leafs.

Shot from above! You can see some paint that has been scrapped off at the wing-root hinge points. I don't know what to do here. The fit is so perfect that it keeps the tension on the wings from flopping down when you rotate it. However, it also tends to scrap the paint a bit when you rotate the wings up. I might try to paint it out again - very thin airbrush layer and then clear-coat the hell out of it with many layers - I don't know yet.

Here is one of my favourite front views.

Here's a shot of the underside with the engines done (before any washes though - can't wait)

Another really intricate shade to mask that really should have been a decal. You can see I usually build up these shapes with many pieces of tape instead of trying to cut the shape out of a few larger pieces. As long as you spray a thin "dry" coat of paint, there should be minimal seepage. Always try to spray with the tape - avoid spraying "into" the edge of the tape.

I think Bandai must own stock in masking tape - Here's my wounded bird - all taped up for the white details layer - which again really should have been decals. Maybe a version 1.5 of this kit is forthcoming

Here's the mess at the back - with all these little colours and the white tips, I thought that leaving the white till the end is the best solution - but you get a masking nightmare!! If any of you can think up a better order of things to paint or mask in, I'd love to know about it!! Well here goes...

Here we go with the masking again...

Here's the bird with the bandages taken off at the white details stage. I purposely haven't masked the very distinct nose white markings yet. It’s late in the afternoon - and I want to devote a whole day to that masking and paint job tomorrow. It’s one of the most important parts/marking for this aircraft. Overall I am pleased, however, the two tone grey-green is too muted and the white seems to be so bright and contrasted. I'll tone it down later with a bit of grey, but it will be hard not to tone the whole plane down - the grey-green is already fusing into one colour - I hope that giving it a separate flat finish will restore it back to the shade I had when I first applied the paint.

Here's the underside - I like the forward sensor pod white marking - although hell to mask, at least there were panel lines this time to follow.

Finally we are all caught up again... I just couldn't resist putting the pod in and zooming it around a bit. Brand new spanking plane!! I think the next steps are to clear-coat this layer, mask the forward nose section for the white markings and yah!! Off to the oil washes to pick out the engraved paneling details and “subtle" post shading.

I definitely cut the tape first, and then apply it. Don't cut it while on the model - you might go through and cut into the paint - it would chip or flake off if you do. Alclad loves a clean glossy surface - the smoother it is, the better the finish. That is exactly how I tint the canopy - I spray with Tamiya Smoke (it’s a transparent colour) I let dry then dunk. I dunk several coats to get rid of the pebbly surface the spray on Smoke gives to get back that acrylic shine. Any answers to my questions on airbrushing Future - how to thin and clean the airbrush? What thinners or solvents? The Alclad primer is fantastic (you have to spray at low pressure though 12-15psi) but it comes prethinned to airbrush consistency! I've used Tamiya paints almost exclusively and have never had too much problems with the white. I've used the Tamiya Flat White here on this model, and it had to cover some pretty dark colours. I've noticed that the Flat colours had a bit better coverage than the gloss. I would suggest thinning it a bit less than darker colours, like 4:1/3:1 paint: thinner and spraying a rather "dry coat" (higher pressure farther away like 5-6 inches) so that the paint is almost dry when it hits the model. This helps in two ways, it prevents seepage under your mask, and it covers better when it’s dry rather than a thin milky liquid. Also, do it in thin layers, and allow to dry in between layers (it’s should never look like a liquid on

the model). OK, I did my in one go, but after a lot of practice and it’s a small area, if it were bigger, then I would of done it in individual coats. I ran across this excellent article on the web on Tamiya paints: http://www.ecpmod.com/Articles/article2.html Tamiya smoke sounds great for panel lines - its basically thinned down black. I might try it on the engine portions - but I'll stick to a darker shade whenever its available. I think the darker shade is a little bit more forgiving since it won't be so bold. Well here's my day - trying to get this nose stripe on right took several tries especially trying to get both sides to be symmetrical - and off course everything is a curve!!

Well here it is, not too bad, but not great, if you look closely, the edges isn't perfectly smooth. The overall contours are right and there is no overspray, but there are areas where the adhesive on the Tamiya masking shows through as a few little bumps - normally I wouldn't look this closely - but it’s such a small plane - I mean this line is only an inch long! So any imperfections will show up large in scale comparatively. Aftermarket decals would be great for this bird!! This really should have been a decal! What's next, Bandai will want us to spray the stencils "no step" in 1/100 scale

This shot shows the "bumps" better - I don't know how to get a smoother line?

This is where I'll let the plane stand overnight for the clear-coat to dry. (Must keep hands off - before I ruin any other paint finish) I can be so impatient especially when I get to this point where I would do the oil wash, post shading and decals. I have repaired the wing-root hinge area and put lots of coats of clearcoat over that area as well as paint the wing pylon details in metallic steel as well. I think my plan is to tone down the white and light grey with a neutral grey when I do the post shading phase. Then at the end - after the decals and clear-coat to protect the decals, I will re-mask the light green and spray those with a flat/matte finish. So I will keep the semi-gloss of the darker shade and engines, but get a flat sheen on the lighter green areas - hopefully that will restore the original contrast between the two colours.

Starting the old wash...here's my spotted bird.

This shot is a close up of the different greys - the black wash for the engines and dark moveable surfaces and the lighter grey for the regular panel lines.

The weathering on the top is really subtle - I didn't want it to look battle-worn, just tie all the colours in a bit (the photo doesn't really show subtlety well). There will be another light dusting of grey after the decals to tie those in - so it’s always best to error on the side of caution. You can always add more, overdoing it is a harder fix. This photo shows the other missiles (I decided to paint the bodies/shaft white like the Superslyph, but haven't decided on a fin colour yet - I don't think I'll take the instructions pale purple) the centerline tank (which there are no paint instructions - but I did the Alclad Steel because I like the finish so much - in hindsight, this will be my Alclad test model pod.

) and off-course the cockpit

A great view!! Its decal time soon, as soon as I let the clear coat dry!! Ya!

Back to decaling today - hopefully I'll post some pictures today. Just got a brain-wave last night - I plan on masking after the decals to do some shades of flat clear-coat on this bird to bring back the lighter green-grey - but I was cautions because the last time I masked after I applied the decals was my Elintseeker's radome (those of you who follow or care remembers what a nightmare that became when I pulled of chunks of decal). I thought I would clear-coat the decals, then use Post-it notes - the sticky back is much less - we’ll see how it goes. I get my Future at a super market; Loblaws was the last time I checked - in the floor cleaning aisle. For those of you in the GTA, I saw a bunch of Future on sale up in Scarborough at Bamburgh Circle in the Chinese supermarket at Steeles and Warden on Saturday. Thanks Cmd McBride for the nose white markings comments, I feel a little better about them now. When you build these things and put such effort into them - you are never happy of how it turns out there are things I wished I did differently on each and every one of my models. It’s part of what gives me the drive to continue building models - the promise that I will not do that particular mistake again on the next one! Again for those of you in the GTA, Northstar Hobbies in the west end carries Tamiya masking tape as well as Collector's Lane Hobbies in the east end. I have started to see them popping up in local Anime stores such as Pacific Hobbies in the Pacific Center. Lastly, the post shading, I used a neutral grey this time - since it’s a shade lighter than the underbelly sky grey. I always use a shade darker than the base coat I want to post-shade over. I dilute in with Tamiya thinner more than usual 2:1 paint: thinner to get a very viscous consistency. This helps to not lay down a lot of paint and allows the airbrush to achieve a finer line. Then I very lightly (key here is build up in layers - SUBTLETY - error on the light side – it’s always easier to add then fix if you put too much) airbrush as fine of a line as I can - "tracing" around all the panel lines and any contours I want to highlight. It’s kind of like shading a 3-d sculpture and it’s a bit of taste to determine where you want it and where you don't. Since this is a relatively new aircraft, I did it very lightly. I find when you over postshade stuff, it looks more anime like kind of like the Gundams we see everywhere. Once you are complete - immediately seal it in with a clear-coat. This post-shading layer is very delicate, since it’s such a light misting, it can scratch off easily. A brief update while I let my clear-coat dry. Wow... holy micro decals Batman!! I think I need a few seconds to let my crossed eyes adjust!! Well, after the decals on the last Bandai kit (Yukikaze Superslyph) were generally oversized (more like 1/72 than 1/100) well, they more than made up for it on this kit. These are tiny, in fact most of all the warning stencils were so small that they turned to be little blurs or smudges. As insane as it was, I spent the better part of the day applying all these little smudges - you may not be as crazy as this, and still the kit would be pretty much unchanged Oh, well too much time on my hands. I did cut out all the decal film between the red walkway lines on the wings - it was just too much film to hide. However, when you did this, you are left with a "U" shaped red stripe that was extremely difficult to get laid down in the proper geometry. I spent a good 1/2 hour on each of these red lines and a lot of water to keep them moist while I fiddled with one section or the other. But I believe the end result is worth it, a huge decal that were to cover most of the wing would have been easy to put on, but looked

pretty bad in the areas between the red lines especially if the text and round emblem was to go on top of that too. What killed my eyes were trying to trim around the excess decal film around all the little stencils - but if you don't you'll end up with blobs of decal film around all these little smudges which is worst! Because the decals were so small or fragile, I applied them with water, brushed them into position with a damp brush, then dried the brush to "wick" out the excess water, and dabbed MicroSol setting/solvent solution on the edges once they were in position to help hide the decal film edges.

Here's the underside. The decals for the forward sensor area (the little irregular white patch) really do make that area pop out - I'm glad that I spent the time to mask that irregular shape out - I think it would be worth it. In the end, I am going to but dabs of blue transparent colour into the camera lens openings. The decals for this area came as three sections of little stencils, all held together with decal film. I again trimmed this off and applied each stencil separately - if you leave the film on, I am afraid it would cover some neat details and a camera lens or two. (I'll do a shot close-up of this when I finish it off with the camera lenses - I also painted the lens housing in silver). At this resolution it doesn't look like much, but all those little black smudges are separate stencils!!

I couldn't wait any further, 2 hours after my last semi-gloss clear coat, I started to try the flat-coat idea to bring back the lighter green-grey colour. Here is my "hare-brained" idea with the post-it notes. It didn't pull any decals off this time around, in fact, it kept falling off, and I had to re-adjust and apply the post-it notes before each time I spray the flat/matte finish clear-coat.

Viola!! It turned out really well If I may say so myself I am so happy, I really was upset when after all that careful masking, the colour blended so much with the darker grey when I clear-coated the entire thing semi-gloss. In fact, I like it better now, where some parts of the plane is semi-gloss and some parts are flat - it gives an interesting sheen to the aircraft (especially when you walk around it) - especially where I chose to break the flat/semi finish at the panel lines. It makes it look more assembled from separate pieces and a sense of scale - sort of like the Enterprise A in the Star Trek movies with their subtle off-white panels.

Here is another view.

A rear view - its interesting how the flat pieces catch the light, in darkness or a darker environment, the two grey/green colours are still very close, but in bright light, you really see the contrast. In fact it makes the metallic steel look even glossier. What do you guys think of this grey/green version instead of the bluish one in the Model Graphix and the instructions?

I left the underside that semi-gloss.

In these pictures you might forget how small this model kit really is. It makes the Hasegawa Valkyrie roomy by comparison. I'll wait till tomorrow when there is sun in my dining room to take some proper pictures of this new baby. I still haven't got a real clue on how to paint the missiles - any suggestions other than the instructions pale purple would be helpful.

I am glad the flat thing restored the two grey/green tones - whew! that was a close one - and the post-it notes didn't even pull off a single decal! Well there's no sun today, so I'll try to finish off the missiles before I take any beauty shots of this new addition to the family. Thanks for all the great info on the missiles, I think I will follow it with a grey/blue shaft, white nose cone and silver fins – it’s a bit like the anime as well - I'll do a compromise between the two styles. I'll do a yellow stripe for the live warhead, but maybe a red stripe instead of the brown to match the Yukikaze Superslyph's white missiles with the red strips. We’ll see. Yes Cmd. McBride, I almost use Tamiya acrylics exclusively now (too bad I had to mix all the custom colours). There are the minor exceptions of the ModelMaster clear-coats, and the Alclad metallizers. Hey IIymij, maybe you could start a new thread and post pictures of your decals (close-ups) so I can what the bubbles look like. The decal solvents and setting solutions are a bit tricky, I would only recommend after mastering regular decal placement do you move up to these, because they have ruined a few precious decals for me in the past. The solvents and setting solutions softens the decals so much so that they confirm to highly irregular surfaces, corners and panel lines, but in the process, they become extremely fragile to the point of "printed goo" as one modeler pointed out to me. Let’s take a look at your decals first and see if we can solve it without the solvent and solution. There really is no need to use this stuff when you just want the decal to lie flat - and the Hasegawa decals are one of the best quality ones I have had the pleasure of working with, unlike old revel or monogram stuff.

You should dip them in room temp water for about 6-8sec, and then take out - they should easily slide off with a wet/damp brush. Put the decal with the decal paper backing on your model and nudge it off with a wet brush. Keep the model and decal wet at all times while you re-position the decal into the final position. Once its where you want it, take a damp cloth or paper towel (preferably lint-less) and dab gently at the decal to push any water and air bubbles out from underneath the decal. Then let dry. Once you've got the future, for the clear parts at least, all I do is find a part of the canopy that I won't see (like a peg or frame) and use a pair of pliers and dunk the entire thing in the future. I then take it out, and angle it to let it drop off the excess, sometimes if I see excess pooling up around the edges, I would dab it with a paper towel (look for lint!) but pretty much leave it alone for a few hours and let it harden. I would paint the canopy frame on afterwards, since you probably don't want the frame to have the same glossy sheen as the clear portion of the canopy anyways. Word of caution, the future doesn't do well with Microscale liquid mask - I think there is either alcohol or ammonia in it that will eat away at the future finish. Hence if you goof up (and I have many times) you can strip the future off with regular blue windex (it has ammonia) and try again.

Happy Modeling! (And wear a safety mask.)