Well, I got the paints and everything else I need today for the build. I had to start over with everything, and I mean everything! Brushes, cement, magnifying visor, the works.
I decided on one of the Navy's experimental cammo schemes from the Vietnam era. One of the Viggie squadrons used the AF SEA pattern, so I'm going with that but replacing the sand or brown areas with a deep grey. Since I'm on a tight budget and no airbrush or working compressor I'm brush painting this one. Since one of the things suggested for this build was to go back to how we built our kits when we started out, so it's going to be brush painted with the cheap acrylics in the squeeze bottles. I;ve used them with figures with no problem, so I figure with the plastic properly primed it should be easy. The reason I say this is that the paints are dark enough to hide the strokes and the underside is going to be finished in a very dark grey with a hint of green to it. Hopefully, I can remember to get pictures as I work.
Now, I have one major question I would like answered, I have never pre-shaded panel lines on a kit before but after seeing some builds on YouTube using the technique I would like to know if it can be done by brush. If it can be done what color should I use aside from straight black and how dilute should the shading color be as to not over do the effect?
As of now, I'm just mounting the drop tanks but further down the line I want to give it some kind of ordnance load out, maybe AIM-9B on the middle pylons and either TER or MERs with Mk82 slicks on the inboard stations. Since this is a 'what if' I'm thinking that it would be filling the A2G role and let the Phantoms fly MiG CAP and BAR CAP missions.
Thank you, all, for the input. Somewhere down the line I think I may use one or more of what was suggested to me.