Finally finished my postgrad study and managed to find time to resume working on this kit. Additional motivation came in the form of a local hobby shop's meet-and-greet this coming saturday with the export manager of Aoshima. The hobby shop requested that we bring Aoshima kits and show them how we build it.
Started with a mockup of the 2-bar grille (the kit's grille had 3-bars):
Also duplicated the door handles from a Tamiya Pajero. In retrospect, i shouldn't have shaved off the door handles on this kit and just cut them off to reattach later. oh well.
Body and chassis
Test-fit. Because of the excess epoxyclay that I put as reinforcement on the inside of the body, it was a STRUGGLE to get the chassis inside the body.
The rims. The original one's the silver, while the pink ones are the recasts (I used 2-part epoxy mixed with some talcum powder).
The rims, painted chrome silver but given a polyurethane clearcoat to dull the chrome silver to silver.
The taillamps painted. I eventually applied aluminum tape to the borders to get a chrome look.
