This thread shows the making, and the end result of Tamiya's GT86.
I've really wanted one of these cars in real life, but just turning 15 I think it'll be a long time if ever I do.
So, I put more effort into this thing than I have on any other model, and I think it was worth the result
I haven't seen much of a run through of this kit on this site, so I'll do what I can with whatever photos I have saved on my camera. My internet has been down for the past few days, so I'm only getting around to uploading anything now!
Well, this is it primed. You can see the colour it was gonna be originally - Gun metal - but I decided I wanted it a bit darker, so I used it as the basecoat.
These next two photos are the basecoat applied. The front and rear bumper along with the bonnet are separate parts. On the front bumper, if you wish to put the number plate on, you have to drill two holes into the front (two marked points are molded in on the inside to help out) On the rear, the diffuser is a separate piece.
Then, I sprayed the main colour, Halfords' Peugeot Graphite Grey metallic. It's slightly darker than Tamiya's Gun Metal, and I think it looks better. (Bonus points for guessing what model instruction manual that engine pic is from!)
I then cleared it with Halfords' laquer, polished, and waxed with T-Cut. After, I put the metal transfer of the Toyota logo on the front. There's a couple of metal transfers - two Toyota logos (same size, one for front and one for back, I didn't put the back one on) two for the mirrors and one for the interior mirror.
Then, I made and glued in the lovely brakelights. They come in three parts - The glass, from the clear parts sprue, which is a big thick piece (but still accurate to scale) the actual brake light itself, and the chrome base. They look good, I think anyway. I brush painted Tamiya smoke over them, and the light thing on the diffuser, so they don't pop as much.
And this is the side profile. I did all the rubbers around the windows and such. The mirrors aren't molded in, but separate parts.
Then I started to work on the interior. This is the dashboard (obviously) - the clocks and sat nav are decals, along with the pedals, which I thought was nice. No separate parts here - apart from the steering wheel and column.
Completed interior (complete with my first and horrible attempt at making a cup of some form, I had no internet so I improvised it by cutting up the stem of a cutton bud (Q-tip to you Americans!)
I then worked on the engine. Nothing special, couple of parts, not much to rave about, unfortunately. Looks alright. As you can see by this stage I removed the horrible cup.
Then I painted all of the underside, no part untouched. Used a mix of different colours, titanium silver, Gun Metal, Metallic Grey and matt black. For the black, I didn't clean my brush so that it would still have some of the metallic particles on it - leaving a nice flat-metallic finish. I dry brushed the two black panels on the back to give a slight weathered look. And there's a nice dog hair on the bottom for good measure. Lovely.
Next a couple of parts went on here - along with the battery, which is a first in any Tamiya kits I've ever built.
From here, it was just to put the windows in and snap the kit together, along with the panel lines.
Aaaaand here's all the finished pics! I changed the wheels today to a set of nismo wheels, thought they looked better.
This is the 86 beside the first model I ever built, around a year or two ago. I keep it to make myself strive to improve. Not even a single paint was used on the whole thing! Someday I'll buy another XJ kit and do it right.
Thanks for looking everyone, all comments, criticisms and ratings are much appreciated!
- Tomo