Bought this in HongKong. Generally there r a few versions of it, all by Aoshima. The main difference would be the front grill. Choose this one is mainly because the front grill is simpler, not the mesh type that's molded together with the bumper n require loads of work to modify.
Ok another important reason of choosing the D-Sport version is also because though its yen price is slightly higher than all the other streets version, the shop i bought it labeled them all the smae price..... yeah cheapskate Malaysian.....:p
First, the rear brake light. Original: one piece of solid plastic molded on the body; expect u to place a decal on top.... Bad!
The wonder of chisel: it's a lot simpler than it looks like. "Dig" a hole.
Using a ultra thin wire; surprisingly the color of it is actually metallic red. Hence will be using it straight without painting it.
Bad mistake during gluing of bumpers to the car body. Fingers with cement tattooing my finger print onto the kit....
(This is my habit of gluing the bumper to the body before spraying. Reason of doing this mainly is to avoid any fitting problem that i overlooked, which would be a pain to solve after painted n polished.)
Side Signal Light: Molded onto the body, which is a real tough work for someone who's bad in masking.
Cut, sliced, n sanded!
rebuild a separate signal lamp: just use some unwanted pla-strip, cut n sand off the sharp edges.
*Tips: For parts that r very tiny, n almost no space to hold, usually i use this method. Heat up an unwanted sprue, pull; just like u r doing an antenna. Then use one side, heat it again, n while the plastic is still half melted, quickily stick it onto the part.
With this, the sprue is able to hold the part, strong enough to withstand airbrush's air flow, yet very easy to dismantle when u want to assemble the part.
Another example (Wiper):
Filling up the back of the car seat: Pretty standard procedure in Aoshima's kit...
Exhaust Pipe
The original exhaust pipe is merely some thick plastc with chrome finish, which the chrome makes it even thicker. Hence, scrap! decide to use aluminium tube for some simple substitution.
A tube cutter: Very useful tool. However the limitation is for a minimum size of 3mm tube. Luckily the aluminium tube i m using is 3mm.
First, cut a line to make it weaker; so it can be easily cut after polishing.
Basically aluminium tube is fairly soft, which can be easily cut by normal desktop cutter.
These r basically the tools i used for polishing the aluminium tube: A Metal Chrome part polishing fluid, plus a drill/ router.
The effect is pretty significant, especially judging on the time needed to be spent on schieving it. This is one of the fun n fast stuff i love to do in modeling.
Brake Disc
For the first time, I decided to use an aftermarket metal brake disc, after numerous time drooling on others works using 'em.
Since the original brake disc n caliper are both molded together, the fastest way i could do is, instead of doing a 3D brake disc, to stick the outter brake disc onto the original ones; just to have a visual.
Hence, gotta saw off the original caliper from the brake, sand down the brake disc too. This is mainly to avoid the caliper blocking the rim.
