S2000

I picked up a new kit and couldn't help myself to starting it after finishing the last one.

I got myself home and surfed the forum for ideas and finally found one. I found it in one of Hiroboy's threads when he went to Japan. I'm actually quite excited and scared of this build as it looks really challenging. But then again, its only plastic so... what the heck. Out came the Exacto, the plastic card and putty.

I opened up all four wheel arches by about 4mm. Then I started with the front bumper. Kinda chopped it up :uhoh: No going back now.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/01.jpg

I used the piece I cut off as a template for the support for the shape/support for the lower portion of the bumper.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/02.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/03.jpg

I had to 'guess' how far along the lower portion of the bumper had to be but after the lower portion of the bumper was given shape, it looked a bit too far down from the nose (that I have yet to make with putty.) Out came the Exacto and off came the lower half of the bumper and 1mm worth of the plastic extension.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/04.jpg

Here's how the bumper looks now after one weekend and the first round of putty. Its got the basic shape I'm after so I'm fairly confident in moving forward to sharpening up the lines and such on front end. Doesn't look like the chopped up disaster I had a couple pics ago does it? :icon16:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/05.jpg

Thanks for looking!

a.

I wanted to build this car :frown: (if it's going where I think it's going).

But then, you'll probably do it 1000x better than I could. I can't wait to see this come together.... slooowwwwllllllyyyyyyyyy. :grinyes:

Not wasting any time, are we? :icon16: Already loving the look of the new nose, I'm sure the rest will be stunning as well!

Oh yeah! I need some popcorn and Jujyfruits to go with this one!:sunglasse

Looks promessing!

Looks like a great start. Your custom body work always amazes me :D

Thanks guys. Hopefully this won't end up being a very extended project. I think I've got a good start on it thus far.

Merkava- It takes me a while to get motivation for a project and when I finished the other kit, I was in the modeling mood so I've gotta take advantage of it! As you can tell, its very preliminary right now so we'll see how it progresses with time.

willimo- Its *supposed* to resemble the Amuse S2000. He's got so many photos of it that it was just too tempting not to at least give it a shot. The only thing is that the back end is really 'busy' and might be a bit of a challenge. I'm just hoping to get the proportions right as I have a hard time figuring them all out without profile shots. Was this a planned future project of yours? If so, by all means, break out the kit and lets start chopping up some plastic! :icon16:

a.

Niccce, another great project to follow!!

man looking great!
in before Amuse!

Insane project man!!!

Keep it up!!!

Cesar Bossolani
www.scaleimportracer.com

Man, Im a big fan of your work. Very inspirational. Keep up the wonderful work.

I am 'amused' by this build up. Gosh that was awful.....as bad as a pick up line gone wrong.

A bit of a small update. I did a bit of sanding tonight and wasn't too pleased with the way the front bumper profile looked. It didn't look bad but it didn't look right for some reason. It took me a while to figure it out but I think it was too round up front. I took a closer look and it looks as if the front end has a bit of a taper to it rather than round and might even be slightly boxed out a bit at the opening. The sides are also a bit more 'organic' and not as flat as the plastic makes it out to be as well. So I cut open the front bumper again. This time cutting out from the wheel arch to the nose and leaving a piece close to the nose and glued it back into place giving it less of a rounded look. The pic shows where I cut but the camera died before I could snap a pic of the result. I tapered it in more than I should have so that I could add just a thin layer of putty to the sides to give it a bit of a 'bowed' look thus a bit more organic than just plain flat. I also have to extend the nose section just a bit so that the fall of front bumper from the hood is not as steep.

I guess you could say that from here on out, its trial and error and seeing what looks 'right' to me. This is probably why it takes me so long to finish anything as I always go back and adjust it all. I think if i have to adjust it again, I'll have to rebuild the lower half as cutting and gluing the lower half back in is taking away too much material for me to glue back in right.

The next step is putty and rounds and rounds of putty until I find the correct profile. I almost feel like a sculptor sometimes as most of the time is spent on sanding and chiseling away at putty! :icon16:

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/06.jpg

Thanks for looking!

a.

Looks good. I can't wait to see the final product!

Intresting project
How will you modify the rear?

its a really good start thus far, your pickyness is going to make great

Dude! looks like your on the roll with this one i just know that this will no doubt be in the same league as your SW20 MR2.

I know what you mean about motivation and being in the mood on gettin projects finished, im much the same, if finish one i can easily crank out model after after model, but then if things go wrong and you hit a wall it could take months or years to finish one.

You are one of my favourite builders in this forum, you inspire me to improve my skills take a plunge and have a go at serious body work modifications on kits at the moment im dont think i have the skill to do so but im learning from you. Im dying to replicate with what you have done with your MR2.

Im curious do you do a lot of exact measuring and planning when you are modifying body work? or do you do this just by eye, putty and styrene? Thanks again keep up the good work.

the front look quite similar to the Amuse GT1 bodykit or the new Tracy Sports bodykit that shows its debut in this year's Tokyo Auto Salon

Amuse GT1
http://hungryforglory.jpn.org/images/parts/aero.jpg

Tracy Sports
http://www.bulletproofautomotive.com/items/tsap1wide.jpg

so far great work
hope to see this project complete soon

The top pic is what I'm trying to mimic (the Amuse GT1). That's a really good pic of the profile. Thanks! Especially since the profile of the front end is proving to be a challenge to pull off. The more pics the better! :p

I did some sanding but the camera doesn't capture the hard lines well near the headlights. That's probably the hardest part of the front bumper - getting the hard lines sharp and straight. The basic profile is there but I foresee another 2 or 3 rounds of putty before it can be finished (it already has gone through 4 rounds of putty). Since there's still more work to the front end, I left the hard lines on the bumper intact as it is easier to create symmetry with hard edges to compare rather than the rounded softer edges of the finished bumper.

I think it's starting to take shape and look more the part now.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/07.jpg

I haven't thought about the back end yet. I have some ideas to pull it off but I won't know how difficult it will be until I actually try it. I'm still working on the front so the back end is pretty far from my radar right now.

snk33y - I usually eyeball the styrene backing and measure out the critical dimensions when I apply the putty to make sure that they are symmetrical. In the case of the front bumper, I used a french curve to draw the curvature of the front bumper onto an index card and cut that out to be used as a template. That template is what I use to match the left and right sides in an effort to maintain symmetry. That's pretty much the extent of measuring I do. Alot of eyballing of the smaller details (except the panel lines which I think need to look fairly dead on otherwise it throws the symmetry off easily).

Criticism is always welcome. Thanks!

a.

It´s a hard project.. an AMUSE GT1.. that body kit seem prety hard to reproduce.. whell... check this link out.. there lots of great pics from the car in lots of angles.. i hope this can help you out!!

http://blog.gtroc.com/dino/2005/05/amuse_s2000_gt1.html

Good luck with your project!

See ya

what kind of putty are you using? since I don't remember of a green putty.

The front end is almost done. Can't tell if the arches need more work or not at this point but I'll find out when the primer goes on when the back end is done.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/08.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/09.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/10.jpg
http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/11.jpg

That is looking truely excelent! Stunning work. I'm definately looking forward to more!

wow!!

Nice project! That puttywork looks very clean! Well done!

Inspirational stuff!

Here's a small update. I should've done a bit more planning before I started this as I soon realized that the front end was a bit wide and the rear arches were opened up a bit too much. I didn't realize this until I was working on the rear bodywork. The high arches made the rounded arch area too short and the slightly larger width made the arch flare section come out much further than I would like it to. Oh well... it'll take too much work to correct so I'll just leave it alone. Not entirely accurate but eh... it's close enough for me.

I've yet to do the hood and the lower portion of the rear bumper. I'll have to find some time and motivation to finish those.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/16.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/14.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/13.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/s2000/12.jpg

a.

dag gone! that sure looks special! you make it look easy! your putty work is amazing. cant wait to see more

oh and BTW, what kind of putty is that? I read the thread and couldnt find that info out. looks so much smoother than the stuff i use.

That's lookin' freakin' hot! Your putty skills blow me away. I can't imagine making such solid lines, and it looks almost as if you form it out of polyester putty. Just stunning sculpting work there. I am loving see this progress.

Hey Cosmo- I use Eurosoft Polyester Putty from the automotive supply stores. They're pretty easy to work with but the fumes are killer. I use a respirator when applying and a dust mask when sanding (as I always sand alot of it away and the dust is very fine and gets everywhere!).

Thanks Willimo! I almost always make a skeleton slightly smaller than what I want made so that I can apply a coat of putty over it to smooth things over. Kinda like what a bodyshop would do- except in a small scale here. But sometimes I get lazy and don't research the subject and just jump right on in and start slapping on plastic and putty. As you can see with the front bumper, I always go back (well, almost always) and make adjustments. Sometimes large adjustments that end up killing my desire to finish the project. The rear quarters in this case were done in almost all putty and no plastic approach as I was lazy, yet again. It works out most of the time but the difficulty ends in making them symmetrical. Things went well this time around as the only plastic on the rear quarters was the vent on the sideskirt and the vent near the tail light. The rear bumper area was modified using styrene only until I decided that it didn't look right and ended up hacking away at the plastic yet again a-la front bumper style and fixed up with putty. And lets just say the exhaust vents were a PITA to put in (and I still think they don't look quite right!) Anyway, it looks okay for now and I'm tired of spending so much time on the rear area of the kit so I'm gonna call it close enough and move on the the hood and lower bumper and rear splitter type deal. That's gonna be interesting. I think that area, along with a modified hardtop (the kit one looks so bubbly) will pull the bodykit together. We'll see.

Thanks for looking!!!

a.

wow! this is looking awsome. i wish i could do work like that. a true master piece. keep up the good work. can't wait to see it finished

Nice work! U did this before me! :) (i start mine next month hopefully...)

It does seem to be a bit too wide. How wide is it from stock? If it is exact measurement and to scale it should be 2.1mm wider in the front and 1.7mm wider in the rear. (according to AMUSE specs and scaled down to 1/24) But since this is a model, i dont think it really matters that much.

Wow seems like everyone wanted to do this build. I wanted to do it a few months back too but i figured there was a whole lot of work that would need to be put into it and it looks like i was right. Anyways excellent putty work and hope to see it finished. What color are you going for? I saw an amuse S2k at the lond beach D1 show that was a goldish copper color similar to the special edition acura CL or nsx, looked pretty sharp.

I saw an amuse S2k at the lond beach D1 show that was a goldish copper color similar to the special edition acura CL or nsx, looked pretty sharp.

The color of that car u r talkin about is Honda Imola Orange. The owner's name is Ernie.:) :thumbsup:

omg that is one skilled WIP. :D

Cool.. I like the bodykit.

damn,that is a nice bodykit

Wow, stunning replication skills! It´s definitive Amuse GT1, like the real one, can´t wait to see more!:bigthumb::worshippy

Verry stunning work! It might not be completely acurate, but it sure looks FREAKIN cool! Excelent work, can't wait to see how this one turns out. Mine's not a replica, but I think yours will blow mine away.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not entirely interested in building a replica of anything just yet. As all of the models that I've built, I've yet to keep one. Mainly as I don't have any room to display them, I just give them all away as presents. That's probably one of the real reasons why I don't build one accurately as I just enjoy building and dispise the time necessary for planning and groundwork... no plastic involved = no fun!! This way I can just use these as projects to experiment and try out different techniques.

Maybe once I get more space I'll put more effort into building something accurate for myself. Until then, close enough is good enough for me!

a.

Hi,

great job so far. I hope it won´t take too long to see the model finished.

Wow. That body kit looks amazing. I can't wait to see more progress on this car.