Tamiya Porsche GT3

This is Tamiya's Porsche GT3, just another of their excellent Porsche kits. It is curbside but has plenty of undercarriage detail; lots of separate suspension pieces as well as molded-in engine and other bits. Requires some tricky masking to paint, but not all that difficult for the average modeler. Body and interior are of expected quality. Crisp molds throughout, parts fit is reasonably precise (though I had some fits with the suspension installation), directions very clear, et cetera.
Body is primed with Tamiya white primer, painted in TS-8 Italian Red with a couple coats of TS-13 clear. Polished none-too-expertly with Tamiya's coarse and fine compounds, but not yet with finish, which I might do later. Interior is mostly black with carbon fiber decals from Scale Motorsport on the door panels and the gauge surround. Flocked with embossing powder though that isn't visible.
Comments, criticisms, helpful suggestions all welcomed. Thanks for checking out my build.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/ChillyB1/Tamiya%20Porsche%20GT3/DSCN1389.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/ChillyB1/Tamiya%20Porsche%20GT3/DSCN1388.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v230/ChillyB1/Tamiya%20Porsche%20GT3/DSCN1395.jpg
A few more pictures here:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v230/ChillyB1/Tamiya%20Porsche%20GT3/

These kits are truely great. But I always see these finished GT3´s with the rear wheels sticking out. The rear axle seems to be too wide - that should be corrected.

Your paint job looks great, you achieved a nice shine - but the tone for shading the panel lines seems to be too dark.

Besides that it is a nice model.


Robert

Good looking and cleanly built model.
The paint looks great too. :thumbsup:

One thing I would have done is to paint the edges of the lenses with a black sharpie before assembling them, it gives them a much more realistic look.

These kits are truely great. But I always see these finished GT3´s with the rear wheels sticking out. The rear axle seems to be too wide - that should be corrected.

Your paint job looks great, you achieved a nice shine - but the tone for shading the panel lines seems to be too dark.

Robert
Thanks. You are right about the panel lines. I already ruined the finish on this model trying to get the panel lines accented and had to strip it back down to bare plastic. This second time around I'm not 100% happy with them but I'm not starting over again!

The rear end does seem to have an odd camber when completed, but the tires don't really stick out so I didn't bother to do anything about it. I don't know if it is supposed to come out that way or if Tamiya screwed up in the engineering of the kit. I assumed it was my own fault.

Good looking and cleanly built model.
The paint looks great too. :thumbsup:

One thing I would have done is to paint the edges of the lenses with a black sharpie before assembling them, it gives them a much more realistic look.
When I test fit the lenses they looked really good so I just installed them like they are. But I probably will remove them to add the Sharpie treatment. I like to run a silver one first then a black one, so the lenses look like they have the silver seal on the inside and black on the outside.

Anyway, thanks both of you for your sharp-eyed comments.

Nice car and nice pictures. Congratulations !

Looks great, really clean. I think it can benefit from a little lowering. :thumbsup:

Looks nice! I recently completed a Tamiya 911 Carrera and spent a long time sorting out the suspension so that I was happy with the ride height and camber. I did it by reducing the height of the dampers and springs and then carefully bending/adjusting all the other suspension parts to suit. All of that was completed while doing lots and lots of test fitting!

Looks good; I've built several of the Tamiya 911's/GT3's...never had a problem with track or ride height. Sometimes it feels like the suspension won't hold up to the force it sometimes takes to push the wheel completely into the polycap. I suspect the rear wheels aren't completely seated.

As for the headlight cover "surrounds" or halos on modern Porsches...very difficult detail to get to look right with the thickness of the kit part that is so out of scale compared to the 1:1; detailing from the side/inside never looks quite right. I lucked into an unexpectedly decent solution on a Fujimi Cayman; simply used a silver Sharpie on the outside of the headlight cover (I ran it on the inner edges but it overlapped to the top surface...and I realized it looked good that way, so I carefully ran it all the way around...Sharpies are pretty forgiving when freehanding). It gave a fairly authentic in-scale look (they don't have black halos like some other cars or taillights).

I think it's a clean, well built kit. I'd like to see how it looks after you've polished it with the finish compound (looks like could do with a few more goes with the fine) as the clear coat looks to me a little cloudy from being too thick. Looks to be the reason the panel lines appear slightly filled (noticeable on the bonnet). I apologise for nitpicking, those things just stand out to me on any build. Nice job on the carbon fibre accents in the interior.

Looks good; Sometimes it feels like the suspension won't hold up to the force it sometimes takes to push the wheel completely into the polycap. I suspect the rear wheels aren't completely seated.

I don't know what to think about the rear suspension. It seemed to go together the way it is supposed to, but I had a problem trying to install it according the steps in the directions. So I put all the parts together then attached them to the chassis. Maybe that's the problem. I don't think it is the seating of the wheels; I always test this by pushing the wheels all the way into the brake/strut assembly before the final construction phase just to make sure there isn't going to be too much resistance at that later time. I don't think the ride height is an issue; to my eye it looks okay. Now, though, I'm bothered by both the camber and width of the rear end!

I think it's a clean, well built kit. I'd like to see how it looks after you've polished it with the finish compound (looks like could do with a few more goes with the fine) as the clear coat looks to me a little cloudy from being too thick. Looks to be the reason the panel lines appear slightly filled (noticeable on the bonnet). I apologise for nitpicking, those things just stand out to me on any build. Nice job on the carbon fibre accents in the interior.
No need to apologize because I'm looking for helpful, constructive criticism whenever I post a build. I think your eyes might be playing a trick on you regarding any cloudiness of the clear. It is only two light coats and there isn't any cloudiness when looking the actual model. The finish problem lies in the color coat, which is not particularly smooth in some places. And, of course, those panel lines caused many headaches, as they always seem to do for me. I deepened them with my scriber but that is only part of the answer to more realistic panel lines. I used a syringe to inject a thinned mix of Tamiya red and smoke acrylics into the lines. As mentioned above, I'm not 100% happy with the result, but it is better than unaccented lines and better than my first attempt!

Someday I'll get panel lines to look exactly like I want them to, but until then it's practice, practice, practice. I've yet to see anyone who has perfected a technique for solving this modeling problem.

Thanks again for your comments and suggestions, everybody.

What i do is use a round file and file the inside of the polycaps so they go on easier, but too much and they'll be loose.