I did put coat on it to protect the decal and also to make the decal look more like its painted on. As you can see, its hard to tell that the those design are decals. You can't really see the shape of the decals. Also if you look closely, on the fast pack back pack, the tip of the pack where the missile suppose to shoot out, there are even number where the hole is. Also on the wing with a 12 white NO STEP sign on each side. For some reason (maybe my flash) just made it even more shiny in that picture. During the day, with natural sun light it look more like metal. I also did the same kind of job on a few other valkyrie. I'll post it as soon as I take a picture of it.