Tamiya Ford Focus RS WRC 02

I'm trying to improve my building technique and I thought I'd share my latest build. I have been reading as many of the posts as I can to pick up what I can. Hopefully I won't make too much of a fool of myself.

The body shell so far.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/complete/models/cars/sidetopviewdark.jpg

The under side.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/complete/models/cars/bottom.jpg

Dash

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/complete/models/cars/dashbest.jpg

Footwells

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/complete/models/cars/footwells.jpg

I know some of the colours aren't quite right and I'm still getting the hang of the carbon fiber decaling( Man, does it take me ages to decal these little bits.) But I'm making headway slowly. I'm starting on the roll cage, seats and aftermarket belts:shakehead I would like to roughly wire up the interior to make it look a bit more busy. I hope I haven't made too many mistakes.

Thanks for looking.

Dan

Some very nice detail painting on the underside.I know it's quite complicated having built a couple of Focus models myself.The dashboard and footwells look good.I've just started to use carbon decals on some of my projects and you are right it is tricky and time consuming to do a good job with it.You seem to have done really well though.Keep up the good work,I'll look forward to seeing your model progress.

Dan, seems like you have learn alot from this site. It looks really good.
AL

Trying? You're definitely headed in the right direction, your work is excellent.

The paint job on the body looks great what your technique?

Underside as well looks good :smile:



Regards,
Dave

What color did you use for the body? It doesn't seem to have the metallic flakes that you usually see in performance blue. I actually like it without the flakes.

Awesome build. This is my favorite livery. :)

Very good so far!

Great work so far, paint looks flawless and the underside and interior parts show excellent levels of detail and finish.

Great job!!

Thanks to all for looking and your kind comments. I've been distracted as Santa dropped off a double action airbrush for Christmas, I knew there was a reason to be good all year, and much fun flinging paint has ensued :).

davesans - I wouldn't say I've got a technique yet but here's what I did to cover the Ford with paint. Sanded the body and cleaned up the mold lines, A couple of coats of Tamiya white primer with light sanding between each coat. Colour coats are Tamiya TS-51 from a rattle can, about six I think. In hindsight and with advise from folks on this forum I should have shot thiner and more coats of the TS-51 as I got some white lines around panel lines where the Tamiya paint pulled away from the engraved panel lines. ( Next time I'll do better.) I finished off with a few coats of Tamiya clear TS-13 and a little Tamiya wax before I put on the decals. While I got a reasonably good finish I know for next time to be in less of a rush( more coats of paint but much thiner) and much more conscious of dust, lint and gunk. (The paint may look smooth but I can see ever dust mote and freeking cat hair.) Sigh, there is always next time.

SchuberT - The paint is TS-51 there is a bit of metalic in the paint but it is pretty subtle and the lighting I used to take the photo doesn't help show the metalic effect. I'm glad you like it. I must say I like the bold blue as well.

Many thanks again for the great comments and thanks for looking.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Years.
Dan

Looks quite good to me. That body has a beautiful shine to it and the carbon decals look stunning.

Just a quick update before I go back to work.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/complete/models/cars/roughinter.jpg

More detail painting and starting to put the belts in. I hadn't tackled the PE belts before and didn't know they were such a fiddle. I'm using the Crazy Modeler set and that multi-part main buckle is, well...insane. I had a lot of fun adding some spurious wiring, (note to self get some better reference photos before your next build,) and picking out bits with detail paint. I added the tie downs for the spare wheel but didn't have an adjuster so fudged and just put some belts in. -- Another goodie to add for next time. I've started painting up the roll cage and I'll soon fit the other seat and then tackle those impossible long shoulder straps. So far no new stuff ups so it's all ahead full speed.

Thanks for looking.

Dan

That's all looking really good Dan!! You are a very neat and tidy builder.I particularly like the fire extinguishers and the way you have painted the rear suspension mountings behind the spare wheel.The seat straps may have been a fiddle but they look good all the same.Keep up the good work.

Superb work so far, a testimony to the skills of the guys on this site and how you have learnt so much.

The paint finish is excellent, faultless. I love the velvety finish of the dash top section, and great application of C/F decal.

Wiring is great, really brings a model alive hey!

Well done. Looking forward to seeing it complete

Soo nice great job!!

Trying? You're definitely headed in the right direction, your work is excellent.
I really like your clean building technique. Everything looks great from the finish to the nicely done interior with all the extra details. Very impressive build so far.

A little more progress.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/complete/models/cars/interrear.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/complete/models/cars/seatbelt.jpg

Added some bits and bobs and a tiny bit of wiring before tackling the seat belts. I only managed one side tonight and that's enough :). Guiddy you're not wrong about learning heaps of stuff from the guys here. I was stuck as to how to get the decals to lay down on the woven seat belt material until I remembered reading a post that mentioned adding a tiny dob of Tamiya extra thin cement to the edge of the decal to melt it on. The technique works a treat and I wish I could remember who I picked it up from to give them a big Thank You!.

Thanks to quadzero, Guiddy, hypertek and stevenoble for taking the time to add comments. You are all too kind. Thanks for the help and encouragment.

Thas for having a look.

Dan

I have to say that the interior is absolutely superb. Sorry if you've already mentioned it, but what did you use as seatbelt material?

Thank you Ales, I'm glad you like it.

To make the belts I used some white nylon medical tape I found at the drug store. It took colour from a red texta pen very well and has a nice weave. I did place a length of tape onto a piece of thin white tissue paper backing as I couldn't find anything to get rid of the super grip adhesive on the back of the tape. I found that could cut thin, even (2mm) strips with a small rotary cutter guided by a steel ruler. I hope that helps.

Dan

Thanks, Dan! I bought some medical tape for that very purpose, but I also couldn't get rid of the adhesive substance. I'll try your method.

Alex

Dan,your interior is looking fabulous.Did you do anything to the seats or paint them in some special paint or something? They look like they have a texture in your pictures? The seatbelts look stunning and from what I can see you have done a great job with the carbon fibre on the seatbacks.Was this a decal or something else? It all looks so neat and tidy,you are a very clean builder!! I'm looking forward to seeing more.Your photographs are also excellent quality as well.Best Regards,Steve.

Hello Dan,

Yes as it has been said your seats are masterpieces !! :thumbsup:
the buckles and the harnesses look like real ones ! So better couldn't exist.

And on my opinion the fact you put decal over and not under clear coat counts one point more ! :evillol:

Will be a nice Focus once finished.

I think that front light pods have to be changed, did you notice that ? Will you try to scractch the new ones ?
(tamiya put 2001 lightpods in this 2002 set)

Please go on updating this thread with such nice pics and great explanations ! :wink:

Bye
Phil

i'm impressed by the CF decaling on the floorboard/skidplates. very nice work.

I don't think you would be able to add one more detail to this interior, it's fantastic. I'm looking at the seat belts and read how you did it yet I still can't get over how realistic they turned out. I have never built a rally car before but if I ever do, I want it to look like this one. Great job.

Hi Dan.

Just have to say that this is one impressive build.:eek:
The interior is looking fabulous indeed. As do the seats, as mentioned by the previous posters. I too am curious as to how you achieved this texture.

I recently tried to do this for the air intake 'thingy' on my F430. And it looks OK (after several tries), but your texture seems to be rougher. So any hints on how you achieved this would be great, because I'm going to need this kind of texture for the roof of my Jaguar...

Concerning the headlights (as mentioned by Phil). I once read an article in a Dutch Model Magazine in which Guy Golsteyn built this same car (with 2002 headlights). If you like I can make some scans, or you could ask Guy (or should I say sennake, as he's known on this forum) directly.
On http://users.telenet.be/sennake/moca_ra_car/2002_focus_duval.html you can see his work too.

Regards,

Thanks for all the feedback.

To add the texture to the seats I went back to my old armor modeling days to use a method I used to make plastic look like cast iron. All you need is some thin modeling cement, Tamiyas' will work but MEK or similar will do, and a cheap stiff natural haired artist brush. A word of caution though as you are going to be using a lot of nasty smelling cement make sure you have PLENTY of ventilation, hobbys are fun but not worth dying for. :)

Before you start you will need to have to devise a way to hold the part firmly without touching it. In the case of the Focus seats I used a generous lump of bluetac on the bottom of the seat then jabbed a chopstick into the bluetac to make a firm handle. The basic tecnique is to wet an area to be textured with cement to soften the plastic and then jab or stipple the area to impart some texture.

To start take a small section of seat and wet it liberally with cement. This is the only tricky bit of the whole proceedure. All you want to do is make the top layer of plastic sticky and soft. If you get too much cement going eveywhere don't panic just set the piece aside and let the cement evaporate and start again. Once the section is starting to soften take the brush and stipple the surface to add texture. You need to work fairly quickly and firmly but there is no need to rush. After you're finished working an area wet another and stipple away untill the whole seat cushion is textured. A nice thing about this technique is you can wet an already textured area and go over it again to add a rougher finish or if you just flow the cement on and don't stipple it you will soften the effect. I find less texture is more effective than more texture as paint will jazz up the effect.

Once your happy with the texture let the seat dry off for an hour or so before painting. I have a bad habit of making simple things hard so bear with me as to how I painted these seats.

First the seats got a spray of flat very dark grey Tamiya acrylic - flat black with a biggish touch of flat white. Once dry I shot a thin coat of Furture floor wax to seal the seat for oil paint washes and leave a gloss finish.

Once the gloss drys I mixed a oil paint wash made from paynes grey and ivory black oil paints thinned with Number one medium and a little bit of turpentine. I love working with oil paints for washes and drybrushing as once you get used to how oil paints work you will be amazed at the effects you can get from then. ( That said you never get used to having to wait days to get oil paints to dry but then sometimes you have to take the bad to get the good.) The number one medium ( it looks like thin oil, which is what it is.) is used to thin the oil paint out to make the wash with only a touch of turpentine to adjust the final mix. If you use only turpentine to thin your oil paint washes you may find that the oil paint pigments separate out and leave a blotchy effect. I applied a thin dark almost dead black wash over the seat cushions and let it set for about twenty of thirty minutes until the wash looked touch dry. (trust me it isn't) Next with a large soft brush I stippled the seat gently dragging off the wash from the high spots of the texture and adding to the effect. Put the seat away 24 hours untill the wash is dry before drybrushing with a mix of paynes grey, ivory black and a tiny touch of titanium white. Drybrushing with oils is a joy because it's so easy. You mix the colours without thinning them on a little palet, I use a small square white tile, then using a soft brush drybrush away. Note that you will need only the smallest traces of paint on the brush to drybrush with oil paints. You can get some very suble effects as oils have great pigments and a long working time. I really recommend you try them.

Once you are happy with the drybrushing put the seats away for a week. Yep a week. Make sure the oil paints are completely dry before you go on or you will mess up all your hard work. That's the bad part about working with oil paints. I then seal the oil paints with a shot of Testors Dullcoat but any flat will do. I seal anything I have oil painted either with a coat of dullcoat or if I need a gloss finish I use Future floor wax. Because the seat backs needed to have the CF decals put on I brushed on two or three thin coats of Future before I applied the Tamiya CF decals. Once the decals were dry I put on two or three more coats of Future over the decals to get a hard finish as I knew the seats would get a lot of handling when I put the seat belts on.

Like I said before I'm sure there must be easier ways of doing this but that's what I did. I hope that is somewhat clear but if not let me know and I'll see if I can do better.:)

rallymaster -- I wish I had the skill to take on the task of redoing the light pods but I'm just hoping to finish this beastie. Maybe one day I'll give it a shot. Thanks for your comments you are too kind.

DerXL -- Thanks.
I hope the above notes help you add some texture.
WOW! That Focus by Sennake is awesome.

Sorry for being so wordy and vague.
Thanks for looking.

Dan

You're doing really fine, impressive and clean.

You sure can see you're experienced in modelling, how many years did you build army models?

Thanks Marco_Wrc. I have been building kits since I was a little kid 30 plus years ago but always poorly and in a rush. I started about three years ago to systematically try and improve my skills. The internet has been an invaluable tool in trying to learn how to do better work, this forum in particular. While I mainly build millitary subjects I find trying to build a clean race car a zillion times more challenging - you can't hide your mistakes with weathering :).

Dan

As I had the day off work I managed to do a little work on the Focus today. Here's where I'm at now.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/complete/models/cars/overall31jan.jpg

Drivers seatbelts finished and dash installed.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/complete/models/cars/frontish.jpg

Radiator and front brace tacked on.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v294/complete/models/cars/wheel.jpg

I tried to add some texture to the wheel by flocking it and then adding a thick coat of paint and 'mushing' the flocking down with my finger to reduce the hairy flocked look. I need to experiment some more but this attempt will have to do as I want to get this finished sometime soonish. I've painted the interior panels but left them off to take these pictures. So the interior is finished and I just have to get going on the exterior.

Thanks for taking a look.

Dan

Nice work again.The steering wheel looks good.The carbon/kevlar texture on your seat backs looks perfect not a wrinkle in sight! How do you do it? My attempts to use the decals on seatbacks always end up with a few wrinkles.

You're doing a great work on this Focus.
I love the steering effect.
Nice and clean interior, very detailed.

Love the update looks great the steering wheel,the back of the seat very clean work. Can't wait to see more :)

Thanks for the great words of encouragement, they really keep me motivated to finish. After my little break I was looking over what I have done and I've noticed quite a few mistakes, not the least the fact that I forgot to fill in the vents in the front clip:banghead: 'So that's why those Pirelli decals wouldn't fit:shakehead '. I still need to press on and finish this one as I have far to many half finished kits to my name.

Steve - Decaling the seats was a bit of a chore. I do use really hot water to drip the decal into to remove the backing paper. The idea is to get the decal as soft as I can before it gets put on. Then it's a matter of using a firm clean paint brush to get the decal into position. I then apply heat from a hairdryer to soften the decal some more and a damp cotton swab (Q-tip) in a rolling motion to force out any airbubbles from under the decal and to get it to start to conform to the seat shape. I work slowly and evenly around the decal so as to avoid forming any wrinkles. Once the decal is close to right I add some Micro Sol to the decal and let it do it's work but I do find that the Tamiya decals are pretty tough and impervious to setting solvtions and so I do a bit more Q-tip rolling while they are still soft from the Micro Sol. (On other brands of decals that would be a disaster but I have so far gotten good results with the thicker Tamiya ones.) I hope that is some kind of help. Just don't do what I did and blow the darn decal straight off the seat back with the force of the hairdryer. You think it's hard to find a tiny part that you drop on the floor? Try looking for a sticky, wet decal you've blow 10 feet away with a hairdryer:) .

OrangeR, davesans - Thanks for your comments and support.

Quick question, I'm thinking of decanting Tamiya spray can paint so that I can shoot it through my airbrush. (I forgot to shoot some bits like the mirrors and grills while I was doing the body:banghead: ) I've read up and I'm pretty sure I know how to proceed but one thing escapes me. What solvent do I use to clean up my airbrush with? The last thing I want to do is gunk up my paasche with dried paint. Thanks for any help you can give me.

Dan

Quick question, I'm thinking of decanting Tamiya spray can paint so that I can shoot it through my airbrush. (I forgot to shoot some bits like the mirrors and grills while I was doing the body:banghead: ) I've read up and I'm pretty sure I know how to proceed but one thing escapes me. What solvent do I use to clean up my airbrush with? The last thing I want to do is gunk up my paasche with dried paint. Thanks for any help you can give me.

Dan

Dan,
any type of lacquer thinner will work as will 91%+ IPA. I personally use Berryman's Carb cleaner to clean my airbrush/bottles when I've shot some decanted TS synthetic lacquer or MM lacquer/enamels.

Also might I suggest that next time instead of trying to flock the steering wheel you use a product like SMS' Faux Frabix or Krylon's Make-It-Suede? It is a much simpler process and the stippling effect is much less than that of the flocking. I've gone to using Make-It-Suede for my seats, steering wheels and carpet and love the effect it provides. I'll be posting pics of my F430 Challenge and FXX seats done this way soon so you can look to them as examples...

hth, keep up the great job you've done so far, thanks for tips on using oil paints (esp. the part about adding medium to the mix)!

Bill

Thanks Bill, for the intel re: Lacquer thinners. I just returned from my shopping expedition with a litre of the stuff. Looked about for the Krylon Make-it-Suede but couldn't find it at any of my usual haunts here in Oz. It will be something to keep my eye out for while I'm out and about. No doubt somebody imports it here to Austalia. I'll have to experiment with it on my next build. Thanks again for the quick reply. You guys are great.

Dan