Revell Honda Civic SI

[H311m4n]

Hello!

Well, I’m a n00b to modeling as well as to this forum. I come here from time to time to see the great work some people put into their models. I did one or two kits long ago…as far as I can remember I once bought an amt chevelle when I was 11 or something, but didn’t realize at that time I had to actually paint and build the whole thing myself lol.

Recently a friend of mine bought a model of a space ship, which kinda made me want to do something too. So I went to hobbylink.com and ordered a few cars. One of those is this revel Honda civic SI 2 in 1. Nothing fancy actually, but I always liked those little Japanese cars.

So, here’s what I did until now (see pics). The great thing with this kit is it comes with 3 sets of wheels. I picked one and painted it gloss black. As for the color of the body, it will be silver and is drying for the time being. I installed the whole bodykit, leaving out only the wing cuz the stock one sucks and the custom one…well it sucks too (imo).

The steering wheel and the seats are from a 1/24 x-tuner skyline (that I bought mostly for the parts *waste of money* ^^).

One last thing, and I could really use your advice one that, is I wanted to tint the back windows in black. But painting them just doesn’t look good. I tried using the inside “tape” from the disks you use in floppys, but that just wasn’t big enough. Does anyone have a method to do this? I took a look in the tutorials section but can’t remember anyone talking about it!

Enjoy!

[H311m4n]

Well, the paint is dry! Here's what it looks like...



cheers!

[G-man422]

SWEET! i cant wait to see it when its done.

[Merkava]

Looks really good, man! Your engine and chassis detailing shows up well. I'm almost certain there was a thread and tutorial on window tinting a while back... I believe actual window tint film (for real cars ) was the material of choice. The results looked good, but you might have trouble sourcing the small amount of film you'll need.
Good luck!

[H311m4n]

Yep I thought about that too (real car tint film). But I don't want to buy a huge amount of that just for 3 little windows ^^. Maybe it is possible to buy only some small amount of it...I'll try to search with google (a geek's best friend ) if there's any easier way to do it. Anyway, thanks Merkava!

Little progress on the engine bay :-) :



I don't know yet if I should leave the seats red or paint them, what do you guys think?

Time for bed I'm freakin' tired ^^ (I'm in Europe).

[89Sunbird]

WOW! I would never be able to come close to that level of detail!

[91p10nizmo]

Looks good. Go to a car tinter and ask if they have some off cut they dont need, they might give you some. Then you wont have to buy any. Its worth a try.

[H311m4n]

Yeah 91p10nismo, I might do that :-)

@ 89sunbird, I don't want to sound modest an all that, but it really ain't that hard believe me. I'm far from being a professional regarding this hobby... but you only need two things for detailing : a very rare tool called a "toothpick" and patience !

What I do is a put only a drop of paint on one end of the toothpick and then gently pass it on the surface I want to detail. Thats what I did for the springs on the suspensions or for all the little white spots on the dashboard. I guess this is nothing new to the most skilled of you guys but if it helps someone...

cheers!

[H311m4n]

Ok people!

Made some progress today. The interior is almost finished, I have to paint the third tail light and it's all done. I think the seats look ok in red, I might just paint a few things on them with gloss black and aluminium.

As for the rest, I kinda F-ed up the silver paintjob on the left side of the car while painting the window frames . I used some masking tape to put the gloss black as properly as I could, but when I took it of, a small spot of paint took off with the tape (just under the left miror)! Hell I screamed so loud even my dog started to bark...I had some silver revell color so used it to cover the little mistake...on the picture you can clearly see it because I used the flash on the camera, other than that, it is barely noticable. I didn't feel like painting the whole body again anyway. Thing is I used some cheap paint (no tamya or whatsoever). But hell with it, I'm building these models to have fun and I think I am not doing so bad for a n00b am I?

I'll try not to do such a crapy job on the paint with my next "projetc" (either a 67 mustang, a 70 chevelle, a 72 chevy pickup or a 69 yenko)

Just one more thing, nothing is glued in the interior (dash, doors, seats only), I used the rubber to keep the whole thing together for the pics

[daklunk]

I've heard bad things about using tint film, but I odn't remember another way... There was something where you added a dye to boiling water and dipped the part in it, the longer it was in the water the darker it got... Is that right? I can't find this anywhere, yet I remember it. Anyway, any tint shop will have scraps that are too small to use for 1:1 applications, and they'll probably gladly give you some.

Looks good, just one thing though: On those axle halves, the silver part you painted is supposed to be black, as it's a rubber CV join boot. But other than that, everything looks great. Interior detail painting is well done. Looking forward to seeing it finished...

[energon]

If you have an airbrush, you could pick up some Tamiya clear smoke to tint the windows.

[syntax error]

Originally Posted by energon

If you have an airbrush, you could pick up some Tamiya clear smoke to tint the windows.

I'd advise against this.... I've seen it some really bad results from this. The window seems to loose clarity. I'd go with daklunk's suggestion of visiting a tinting shop for scraps.

BTW the civic is looking great. Fantastic detail.

Edit: Here is something about about Tamiya clear somke in the FAQ on this forum as well....

[H311m4n]

@ Daklunk : Sorry to ask this, but what is the "axle halves"? I ask cuz my english is ok but not that excellent and because my knowledge about cars is quite short ^^. Anyway I remember having read something about a film that you put in the water and the longer it stays in it the darker it becomes : it's called RIT brand fabric dye.

An other method I found is, a says energon, to use some tamyia smoke and an airbrush. Thing is I don't have an airbrush and they are pretty expensive too (I saw some revell ones for like 20€ but :-s)! But I think I'll leave the windows tinting out ;-)

Anyway, thanks for the support!

[daklunk]

RIT fabric dye... I'll look into it!

You can see one of the axles (sorry, dunno why I called them halves) in the last pic of your first post, the picture with the suspension pieces. It's the sort of boomerang shaped piece, near the front suspension sub assembly.

BTW, your English seems fine to me. I didn't even notice!

[H311m4n]

Yeah my english is ok actually, just a few words that I don't understand sometimes cuz I usualy speak frensh ^^

Ok I see what you mean I'll pass some gloss black on that.

Well, the car is almost done. I assembled the body, the interior and the chassis...looks better than I expected though a few mistakes are noticable. The red seats look far better than I thought they would!

I still have to : glue the left tail light, paint and glue the mirrors, paint the front grill (kinda forgot that one...) and put on all the decals I want!

Here are a few pics to show you what's been done so far.

The engine with all the given decals:


What it basicaly looks like ^^:


View from the booty


And the interior seen from outside (can't see shit though )