Air Cooled - Porsche 911 GT2 (Taisan Starcard)

[mrawl]

I found some time to do a pretty basic build, so I think I'll have a crack at the Tamiya Porsche GT2 race version for the air-cooled group build. Looks like we have a few of these on deck now, so that should be good inspiration.

Mine will be straight oob, with some minor finishing touches like seat-belts I guess. Just shooting for a clean, shiny, colorful model. Like this:


Here's a couple of quick mock-ups. I'll do the standard paint job, ie, black on black, with the Tamiya decals. It ought to be fun trying to get a nice black finish. The tape on the front is to protect a very fragile molding up there.




Very simple interior. Just what the doctor called for




I marked most of the molded body details with a fine drill and knocked them off. Mainly to make painting easier. I'll use pins to mount the mirrors.


Drilling on a sharp angle to go up into the mirror cleanly.


Panel lines lightly scribed and everything cleaned up, ready for primer. I couldn't resist removing the refueling cover, I'll do some sort of filler plate (cudos to Andy's superb work).


My first taste of black lacquer. Me likes!!! Looks good straight out of the can, just like a factory job. I won't need to polish the interior.


Tamiya has the rear seat-back separate from the chassis and attached to the intercooler. Weird. I broke up that little affair and put the seat where it belongs!


And the roll cage. Wasted a lot of paint here, but it's just so easy straight out of the can to get the right finish, and to get all of the surfaces...


Ok, someone else's turn now

[jano11]

Nice start.
Hope you'll do some detail painting on that chassis, it looks way to black for now!

[klutz_100]

I'm looking forward to following this

[Porsnatic]

Hey, great job so far. A question: what paint you used straight from the can?


Thank you!

[sam01contact]

This is a beautiful car, I will follow this thread with great interest!

[Ferrari TR]

"paint it black"
stones
lol

[MPWR]

Cool, another one! It's a nice kit, isn't it?

Good idea to separate the intercooler from the firewall. Wish I'd thought of that before painting my interior.

Interior paint looks fantastic. TS out of a can? But I agree with jano11, that a bit of detail in there will be good- otherwise it may look very dark and empty.

[ddtham]

Mark,

Looks like you are off to an awesome start. I know you're going for a clean OOB, however any surprise for us? (opened doors, hood, trunk ).

[mrawl]

Thanks for looking guys. I know it's not much yet, but I will be going for a nice finish, so let's see...

Nice start.
Hope you'll do some detail painting on that chassis, it looks way to black for now!

"paint it black"

Lol, yeh, just mockups - it's all molded in black plastic. I'll paint all the details as instructed, like a good little boy.

Hey, great job so far. A question: what paint you used straight from the can?

Tamiya TS14. See below for more info.

Cool, another one! It's a nice kit, isn't it?

Good idea to separate the intercooler from the firewall. Wish I'd thought of that before painting my interior.

Interior paint looks fantastic. TS out of a can? But I agree with jano11, that a bit of detail in there will be good- otherwise it may look very dark and empty.

Yep Andy, the kit is great, pity it doesn't have an engine, but it's good to do something simple. Then again, if our friends at gdesignstudio were to do an engine kit...

The firewall thing is nuts - I wanted to paint it all in one piece with minimal masking, so this was the way to go I think.

I'll put the interior together and if it looks barren maybe add some flash, but black wiring for example would be almost invisible probably!

It is TS straight from the can. I used a light coat of white primer, 2 light finish coats, then 2 heavier coats. I laid down all the finish coats in just 15 mins or so, I've got some vague idea that the volatility of the initial coats helps the final coats to level out(!). So the painting is very quick and easy, but it does take longer to dry fully. I think it helps to keep the can as close to the model as possible - it's obvious right? the spray droplets are closer together, so smoother finish...(lol!) You end up with a very faint, soft ripple that looks ok for the scale. All the new cars have that soft ripple, it's very noticeable when you look up close. I like that effect for the interior, I'll go for glass on the exterior. I know I should try the airbrush, but mine won't hold enough paint for this!

Looks like you are off to an awesome start. I know you're going for a clean OOB, however any surprise for us? (opened doors, hood, trunk ).

Ha ha, no, not without an engine. However, I have a few plans coming down the pipeline which I'm really jazzed about. Hope they come to fruition.

[360spider]

Great start.

[Robi J]

I still remid the epic work you did on your 360. I'm tuned to follow this

Robi

[MPWR]

While I'm thinking of it, consider filling in the slot for the rear tow hook if you haven't painted the body yet. It's on my list of things I would have done if I had realized beforehand. The front tow hook is great, but the rear is kinda strange looking and doesn't agree with my references at all.

On Club Sport cars, the tow ring is actually a loop of steel cable in the corner of the license plate well. Make it out of heavy duty sewing thread or the like.



For dedicated race cars, the tow hook is usually a welded rod loop on centreline that passes through the bodywork. Brass rod, stretched sprue or similar will do nicely.



Hope I'm not too late to suggest this- I've had to come up with a creative patch idea on mine.

[mrawl]

Nice pics, I agree those hooks look better. It would be interesting to know which car they actually modeled initially. The kit has two wings and a few versions, so I have no idea, but I'm guessing whatever it was had a hook like the one they used.

I Googled for hooks and found this one, which I'm sure you must have seen - the Tamiya hook could be easily converted into something like this.


The GT3 Cup's hook is vaguely similar to the Tamiya one (ok, very vaguely!). Anyway, I don't mind the hook so much, but the vacant license plate well does look pretty bad. You should definitely go with a nicer version - your model deserves it. Mine doesn't, lol,

[mrawl]

Got most of the under-chassis stuff painted. Not quite finished yet, but getting there...

No PE this time. I shaved the surface of the rotors to get them nice and flat - they're just too rough and wavy otherwise, even from Tamiya.


Damn, I see I missed a mold line on my clean-up. Oh well, not visible




Initial engine job. The gold covers are from an earlier Porsche, but I like 'em. No accounting for taste Can't see it here but the engine is all black below a certain point to simulate the mounting bucket thingy that Porsche uses.




Yeh, I agree - that engine looks boring, so I went at it with the weathering gear. The biggest problem with the weathering make-up is that it rubs off pretty easily. I might try paint next time.




You can see the rotor wash - to bring out the holes. Tried to keep it subtle.


Made a start on the wheels too. Roughed 'em up a bit. Now - how to paint the gold??...


This is the best I could come up with. It's just a ring of masking tape pressed lightly against the wheel, edge-on.


But it's a mess you say Not so... (!)


I compared various gold paints and concluded that Alclad had the nicest gold color. It's amazing the difference between them - they vary from too dark (Testors), too green (Talon, though this is *excellent paint and will have plenty of uses) and too-pale (Tamiya).


I'll probably do some more weathering, esp on the wheels. Not sure about the body yet.

[tuned.by.twenty]

The wheels are great! I love the classic gold/chrome combo.