F430 Gt3

I never visit this area but I can't help but be drawn in by the Ferrari hype so I decided to pull out my works in progress as well as the other new kits. I've painted the body on the Revell kit but lost interest after that. While in that phase, I also bought the Fujimi Challenge kit as well. This will give me some inspiration to finish one of them hopefully. The challenge kit was supposed to be the base kit for the 2007 GT3 Ferrari but the plastic was too thin for my heavy hands and I'll eventually break it during modification. So I bought yet another Revell F430 kit. Hopefully I'll finish these off by the end of the year.

Just some comparison shots of the Revell and the Fujimi kits. I really like the sharp edges of the Revell kit but the thinner plastic of the Fujimi kit has also caught my attention. I think the Revell kit will be easier to modify with the air intakes already on the body. The Revell kit also has thicker plastic which is a good thing when chopping up the front end and hood.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/compare-01.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/compare-02.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/compare-03.jpg

From the pics, once painted and without the Revell wheels, the Revell kit is just as good as the Fujimi kit in my opinion.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/503544615_6570e220f9.jpg

That's what I hope to achieve once I'm done. Of course it will probably sport the challenge livery as I don't think I can come up with other decals. Doesn't that car look cool!?

a.

These are cool looking cars, look forward to seeing what you come up with.
I was thinking about the Fujimi Challenge kit, would it be worth it?

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/cut-01.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/cut-02.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/fenders-01.jpg

This looks like a build to watch! That body work so far looks excellent!

This looks like a build to watch! That body work so far looks excellent!
:iagree:

Finished modifying the fenders and intakes. So far I've got one of the fenders on and will wait until the second fender goes on before I place the modified intakes on the front bumper. I was hoping to not have to use putty to smooth out the location of the fender extension but no such luck. Looks like I will have to do that afterwards.

a.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/fender-02.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/side-02.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/fender-03.jpg

It looks like you're doing a good job so far.

Here are some photos I took at Silverstone this year:

http://img294.imageshack.us/img294/1633/img1462ml4.th.jpg (http://img294.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1462ml4.jpg)http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/1755/img1463vu1.th.jpg (http://img513.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1463vu1.jpg)http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/5594/img1464et9.th.jpg (http://img407.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1464et9.jpg)http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/617/img1465wt9.th.jpg (http://img407.imageshack.us/my.php?image=img1465wt9.jpg)

looking very good!

This will be cool to watch. Fantastic paint on the red Revell. Which wheels are you going to use?

These wheels from the Scale Motorsport Corvette transkit look close:

http://store.scalemotorsport.com/merchant2/graphics/00000002/31231_1_full.jpg

These wheels from the Scale Motorsport Corvette transkit look close:

http://store.scalemotorsport.com/merchant2/graphics/00000002/31231_1_full.jpg

For $135, they should look good! Inexpensive BBS style rims seems to be the holy grail of modeling!

That looks pretty good. Those wheels look great but it comes with quite a hefty pricetag!

I tried looking for a couple of shots of the hood vents online but those shots are really hard to come by.

Those wheels look great! I'm probably going to end up using the Challenge wheels. The wheels you've showed me are just too expensive.

I'm fairly satisfied with how the fenders came out. I need to add some putty towards the fender/door area to smooth out the transition. It took a while to profile the fenders a bit to get a sleeker shape but I'm happy I spent the time to do it. I've recreated the front end to an extent. I'm trying to find a bit more ref pix of the front end before I go ahead and start cutting away and starting the lower bumper/side vents.

Thanks for the ref pix of the hood M4tt83! I think I'll need to search the web for a couple more of the hood as yours is the only good one I've found thus far.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/fender-04.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/fender-05.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/fender-06.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/front-01.jpg

Looking good!
Btw, for $135 you can get a set of 1:1 wheels!

Looking good!
Btw, for $135 you can get a set of 1:1 wheels!

Agreed - you need to cast those up and make your money back, lol. Well, prob not unfortunately as I love SMS and wouldn't do that to them. But you get the idea.

This is an interesting build. I am tuned.

I just wish they would sell them separately for people that don't want the rest of the transkit.

Is there a conversion kit for the GT3 version or are you scratch-building it? It looks excellent!

Is there a conversion kit for the GT3 version or are you scratch-building it? It looks excellent!

Thanks! I don't know if there is a transkit or not but I'm just trying my hand at modifying the Revell kit.

I've gone through the first round of plastic framework and am ready for a bit of putty for the bulking up and profile details. I need to profile the sides of the bumper before I place the plastic piece in that void.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/bumper-01.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/bumper-03.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/bumper-05.jpg

Looks terrific!

Three rounds of putty and the better half of the day later, I'm probably 80% done with the front bumper. I have to insert the plastic panels on the sides, add trim to the front opening and make the lower splitter portion of the bumper and I'm there. The next part will be the hood - which I'm dreading as there are few reference pictures for me. I'll go ahead and tidy up the front flare areas once I'm done with the hood as I'm afriad of cracking off the putty when I work on the hood.

I couldn't help but pull out the other Revell body to comapre how it looks before the bodywork.

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/bumper-06.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/bumper-07.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/compare-05.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/compare-04.jpg

a.

Looks terrific!

:iagree: Excellent body work.

Thanks for the encouragement guys. I worked on the front bumper again today and finished off the insert at the side of the bumper. From some reference pictures, the panel is more stepped than flush. However, I see some not as stepped as others. I like the stepped look so I decided to go that route.

The picture tells a tale better than I can. I found that using a tape template much much easier than measuring and cutting. It's also alot more forgiving!!!

The trick with not letting the glue destroy the sharp edges in your plastic is to glue from the back. You can barely tell that the plastic insert is glued in from the picture. I put a little bit of glue at the contact areas in the front just to ensure adhesion before sanding it down to soften the edges. Looks like I might need a little putty to bind it all together (was hoping to avoid that!)

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/bumper-ref.jpg

http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a288/appleseed415/F430%20GT3/cutout-01.jpg

a.

Looking good. With this kind of skill and workmanship that hood should be no problem!

I really like that tape template idea!

Looks great!
I'm looking fwd 2 more.