Spiny

Probably a lot is down to my parents who shelved out a wall of my bedroom for books. Needless to say, the top shelf provided a good place to put the models I built, even after I'd gone to university. Unfortunately, that didn't protect them from the dust, but by the sounds of yourself and Jeroen it did considerably extend their life expectancy Unfortunately, my main memory of this build is struggling with the many decals. The rest of it is pretty simple as will no doubt become obvious as I rebuilt it.

Thanks both of you. I know there's two school of thought on panel lines regarding whether they detract from a model or enhance it. Personally, I think they do add another aspect to it, but am always wary of them as I've seen some models around where it just feels to me that the lines are too heavy, particularly on a white or yellow car. To try to reduce that effect, I tend to use Humbrol's Dark Grey wash on lighter coloured cars such as this rather than the Black wash I'd use on a darker car - glad that you feel it worked.

They always say that the wheels make a car in real life, so it stands to reason that it should work that way in scale. These look like they should look pretty good painted up and so I expect this could prove to be a good purchase.

Thank you. I don't know anyone who doesn't like a classic Skyline, although I'm sure there must be some poor soulless people around somewhere who don't For the people who do like them though, this is definitely a kit I can recommend.

That in itself is a triumph - I think I often spend that amount of time on corting out kit bodies But then again, I can be very slow.

My 13-year old self is saying thankyou for the kind comments. However, whereas all too often the camera seems to show every flaw, occasionally it does a model a favour... and this is one such occasion - the pics especially understate the amount of grime, dust and general grubbiness this one has suffered. That said, one thing I do seem to have done well is keep a hold of my childhood models, with three having had a very light touch clean and polish, one (the Charger) having had a full rebuild on here. Now it's this one's turn with another six of varying degrees of difficulty (and decal availability!) waiting in the wings.

Thanks for looking, and for the likes and comments. Glad the colour scheme works for you - it seems that this car only came originally in white or silver, and since silver seems to be the go-to colour I figured I'd go with white instead. Of course, having bought the paint it turned out to be the same shade of paint as one of my old cars and I already have a can of it - not sure how good that can will be now though. I get where you're coming from (I hope!) in that I usually prefer cars without model drivers too - it always looks to me as though it's very hard to get a figure which doesn't look completely fake. I was in two minds about whether to put the driver in, but this was the first kit I've done on returning to the hobby which had one, and in the spirit of wanting to try new bits as I go along I figured it was worth going along with building it and seeing how it turned out.

After all the time spent on the Skyline, I feel it's time for a shorter project. To that end, I figured it was time to restore another model from my youth. In truth, I don't feel I did too bad first time around on this given I was about 12 or 13, didn't paint it, and had nothing to do the decals with other than fingers, water and a duster. However, 30 years have taken their toll on it with the decals having suffered a little over not to mention that it has got covered in dust and shows the effect of 10 years on a shelf next to a field - it got a fresh coat of dust every harvest time! This is what it looked like a couple of months ago. So it's time to bring it back to life, courtesy of some Shunko decals and three sets of instructions - one in Japanese downloaded from 1999.co in Japan, one average quality scan from one I found on sale on eBay and a scan of a set of instructions for the Airfix model of this car courtesy of @theplasticsurgeon from this very site. Between those three, I'm reasonably confident I can get the painting about right too. First job was to take it to pieces and get those decals off. Oddly, it was much easier to get the car to pieces (probably because it was stuck together using UHU rather than solvent cement) than it was to get all the decals off. But I got there in the end, and while I always suspected that the plastic had yellowed, removing the decals confirmed it. What did surprise me though was that the coloured decals appear to have stopped the plastic yellowing while the white areas hadn't. Over the past few weeks, I've been getting the paint on this. First up was the primer, which at least returned it to plain white and covered the yellowing. Next up was the paint. Not all that smooth, but as it's a racing car I'm not going for a perfect finish on this one. Starting on it properly today, the first job was to add a wash to the panel lines and the bonnet grille. Generally not too much of a problem apart from that the wash started creeping both ways along the join between the door and the side skirt. I ended up scribing the bottom of the doors and trying to stop the wash going backwards with a blue-tack dam - not 100% successful and the wash is a bit heavy at the bottom of the doors but it was shaping up to be far worse so I'll settle for it. The chassis is also in the shot - very simple as this is one of Tamiya's earliest 1/24 models (serial number suggests the third one they did) and it's also motorised which eliminates space for an engine. There'll be a bit of painting around the windows, but I'm aiming to get that decalling done early so as to get it clearcoated before temperatures drop for winter.

Is this the one you mean? https://www.hiroboy.com/124_Toyota_RA35_Celica_LB_2000GT_77_Model_Kit_--product--11506.html I can't help on which is best between Aoshima and Hasegawa on this one I'm afraid. I know it's a '77, but as far as I know this is the same body style as it was in 1970.

And with the indicators painted and fitted, not to mention the wing mirrors reattached after I knocked both off waxing the car, I'm pleased to say that I'm calling this one finished. The RFI thread is here: But for those reading the thread, here's a bonus pic. Thanks for following - the next build should be much shorter.

It took me nearly six months but today I finally got this one finished up. This is the build thread if you want more detail than in this post: It does live up to the Tamiya reputation of being pretty easy to build, the only real difficulties I had was in getting the body onto the chassis but I struggle with that anyway, and with the seatbelts which were just horrible - sticky back paper does not like being threaded through photoetch buckles! This is the first time I've done any photoetch, and apart from the fact that it's so small it was much easier than I expected (seatbelts excepted). So without further ado, here's (probably too many) photos of the finished build. Overall I'm reasonably happy with it - not sure if my skills have moved on from the last 3 builds or not and it's not without its flaws, but feel free to provide constructive criticism or suggestions for where I can avoid issues next time around. I'll kick off with a few shots from around the car And this one is just because I finally got a top-down shot right for a change A few more pics either side or end on Some on the mirror to give an idea of the underside The engine bay - Tamiya have done a really good job of the engine for this one and it seems a shame to tuck it away out of sight under the bonnet And finally, the interior. Not the best pic ever taken of an interior as I was struggling with reflections as this model is fully glazed, but I couldn't let the thread go ahead without Fred featuring somewhere Hope you like it Spiny

Good work on my favourite colour scheme for this car. That exposed engine could have been a tough ask, but as it stands I'd say with the job you;ve done on it it's probably the highlight of what is a very good all-round model.

If you are having trouble with the pen, for really fine stuff where the 'chrome' sits at a higher level than the surround, I've often found it easier to paint up to the chrome with a fine brush in the background colour. It may need a couple of coats to hide the shininess, but might be worth a try before you strip the whole thing - if you don't like the result you can always strip it anyway

Both look lovely, and I envy you having a model version of your real car available. Are you keeping the 1/24 version for yourself, or does you son get that one too?

I keep forgetting with your English being so good you're from the Netherlands, but by way of explanation this is from the "Culture of Yorkshire" article on Wikipedia. Sadly I'm in work-enforrced exile now "Traditions and stereotypes Many Yorkshire people are immensely proud of both their county and their identity, embracing the popular nickname of God's Own County given to Yorkshire. The most common stereotype of a Yorkshire person is as tight with money: there is a British saying that "a Yorkshireman is a Scotsman with all the generosity squeezed out of him", which references how Scots are also stereotyped as being tight but not as tight as Yorkshire folk. This stereotype can also be seen in the Yorkshireman's Motto: 'Ear all, see all, say nowt; Eyt all, sup all, pay nowt; And if ivver tha does owt fer nowt – Allus do it fer thissen. Translation: 'Hear all, see all, say nothing; Eat all, drink all, pay nothing; And if ever you do anything for nothing – always do it for yourself."