F430 Scuderia - another one!

Not remotely up to the standards of the others on here, but I'm learning, slowly!

This one stalled because I screwed up the clear parts with a bad paint choice (strong lacquers cut through masking tape, boys and girls...), as you may remember from an earlier post! But with a very big thanks to Mr Oishi at Hobbylink Japan, here she is finished. HLJ will order spare parts for Japanese kits for you, and pack them up and send them off. It takes a few weeks, because it doesn't make any money for them, and they wait until they have enough orders from customers to make a single big order to the kit manufacturer. But it's less than a month after I requested the parts, and here we are. Worth remembering, when you're struggling for that Aoshima, Fujimi, Tamiya or Hasegawa part...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100238/lh-corner/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100238/rh-rear/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100238/rhs/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100238/left-profile_2/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100238/rear-end/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100238/topless-sideways/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100238/generations/web.jpg

It's a really nice kit, I found, and it goes together very well indeed, especially at that critical moment when you bring the shell and chassis together! I added a racing harness inside, and replaced the rear window with a clear screen without "demister" lines - or whatever they are. I'm quite pleased with the "carbon fibre" effect, made by spraying a metallic graphite colour through a mesh screen onto a black base colour, or vice versa... There's still some orange peel, but having learned on this one a couple of months back, I invested in some two-pack Zero clearcoat, which is a noticeable improvement on the 250TR I'm building now, and I've also sourced a Novus polishing set, which is on the way... I'll get there in the end!

bestest,
M.

Good effort. Interior looks excellent. As you say you just need to sharpen up the exterior finish. Black window edges and a good polish in future will nail it!

Overall great detail, only thing that lacks is the paint. Theres a little orange peel, but if you can do a better job on the next build it should be topnotch.

It looks terrific. Keep up with the basics and you'll have nothing but awesome builds. :sunglasse
sam-r350 UP.Browser/6.2.3.8 (GUI) MMP/2.0

An excellent effort! I really like this car, great work :)

pretty good start if you ask me!!

GTO looks nice, im just starting 1 now!

Your carbon fibre painting method looks very effective. What kind of mesh did you use? Your interior also looks very clean.

Thanks, guys! The Novus polish has arrived this morning, so the Doyusha DB5 I've just started for a GB on the Unofficial Airfix Modellers Forum will be the first chance to try it...

The carbon fibre spray effect was done with a piece of decorative Xmas ribbon! It's about 2" across, with a fine metallic fibre weave. I saw it on a decoration, and nabbed it before it was thrown away! I've had it since last year, thinking I'd use it for a some mesh grilles somewhere, but it came into its own for this purpose instead. The great thing about it is that it works really easily on complex shapes, like the seat shells, or the vent surrounds in the dashboard. Much easier than getting decals to conform...

bestest,
M.

You've done very well, be proud of it!

I agree with the other comments, basically you have achieved an excellent result. I like the idea for the carbon fibre. Painting black window surrounds and a bit more polishing on future builds and they will be perfect! Apparently Zero 2K clear needs virtually no polishing either, so loads of time will be saved too!

yay! i'm not the only noob! haha keep up the great work man. I'm still afraid of doing a ferrari in fear of making it look bad. you pulled it off though.