Next up on the bench, the new Fujimi Aventador. Very crisp mouldings, and excellent fit so far. There have been a fair few complaints about the fact that it's "kerbside," but I'm going to treat it like the Hasegawa Miura, which I thought was absolutely fine.

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/parts-18-feb/web.jpg

I've fitted together the "body in white" - the bits that will be orange, rather than black/grey/carbon, so that I can spray it in one piece after addressing the fine mould lines. The sills fit great below the doors, but actually don't need the moulded recesses for the tabs ahead of the rear wheel arches, and need to be shimmed out. I have a cunning plan relating to the kerbside nature of the kit, which the chap in the seat is part of. Who is he? Some say he drinks a pint of MEK for breakfast...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/wheels/web.jpg

It's going to be the deep orange, so, I shall be using the black wheels. The front tyres have been criticised, so these have a pair of Pegasus replacements for the fornts, which are lower profile, and stretched slightly to go over these rims. They look OK to me...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/vents/web.jpg

And this is what's taken most of the time so far - chain drilling and opening up all the vents for fitting the photo-etch mesh parts. There are more in the engine bay and floor pan, which I've also done. Not much fun, and I'm now wondering how much they'll need to be blanked to avoid the "see though" look as well. Time to look more closely at my pictures of the real thing...

bestest,
M.

Awesome...I'll be following this one :)

Awesome...I'll be following this one :)

me too!

Also, a nice start.

Interesting!!

Subscribed...

subscribed! i'll be watching this

Awesome! I've got to get this kit! I'll be watching this build closely. My guess is the Stig driving?

this build i gotta follow. checking out the manual over at 1999.co.jp's definitely got me curious about this kit.

and is that the stig's MEK-chugging cousin? :D

This kit literally drove me crazy after a quick mock-up. I'm sitting to be inspired by your process, good luck mate~

sweet!
i got mine the other day, i've been waiting to see the first AF build up

subscribed

Will follow the build too.
took a look at mine, cleaning parts to put PE is indeed a though task promise !!
But the model is absolutely beautiful and realy agressive as I like to see it in sports cars and Fujimi did it well.
And for sure you're on a good way with it too.

At last... some progress worth reporting. There has been a lot of priming, polishing, coat after coat of orange etc, and it seems to have been going quite slowly until suddenly lots of bits started to come together.

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/body-primed/web.jpg

Body and panels primed with Halfords white plastic primer and polished with 4000 and 6000 micromesh. I've actually started the base coast today, but it's not ready to photograph yet.

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/cabin/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/cabin2/web.jpg

Did I mention the orange? Lots of coats of Vallejo Game Colour Fiery Orange to get this far. The cabin is very simple - only 9 parts - and only two colours, really. I tried to make it a little more interesting with varied shades of black (the majority is Vallejo German Grey) and some washes. The decals work well.

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/enginebay/web.jpg

The engine bay. I'm confident it'll look fine underneath the segmented rear window. It would be hugely complex to engineer the rear chassis and suspension and a full engine, and make it very hard to build and get all four wheels on the ground as well. Personally, I'm glad Fujimi took this route or I'd still be doing it next year! I need to see exactly how it fits into the body and decide whether I need to build some gizmology underneath the grilles...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/stig-in-progress/web.jpg

Stig -- "mostly 'armless". I need the driver to be turning left, so I knew some modification would be needed. I used some softish aluminium tube to pin arms, having first chamfered all the joints so they could move more freely. I firmly fixed the tube with superglue at one end, and let it slide in the hole at the other. When I was ready to set it up, I used "90-second" epoxy to give me time to adjust everything to fit. When he was fully set in the cockpit, I removed him (I'd left the dashboard press-fitted in place so as to be able to remove him easily)

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/stig-filled/web.jpg

Good old Milliput is perfect for filling the gaps and re-sculpting the figure. Ready for painting the rest of him, now. And that darn visor!

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/brake-disks/web.jpg

...and finally for tonight... the front brake discs. As you can see, I'm going for the full Clarkson... more on this later!

bestest,
M.

Awesome work so far!!! Love the Stig figure, but you can see his face... who is he...?
Ive wanted to do a project with glowing brake disks but havnt found the right one yet, these look great & I cant wait to see the colour coats!!!

Great work!! I love the idea of this model being "in action" ...very cool!

looking really nice mate!
i watched that top gear episode the other day, insane!!

WOW haven't seen anyone done this before, now I'm looking forward to see some blue stuff there~ lol

nice idea on coloring the discs as if they were glowing under hard braking.

and this stig seems to be an exhibitionist as he's showing his face! LOL!

I have had mine for a bit now but missed out on initial PE release. So I'm gonna wait and see what other aftermarket products come out. Plus I hope to make a hinge to have opening doors (not my strong point :shakehead)

Nice work so far and I'm definitely watching.

Thanks, guys...

Brakes finished:

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/brakes/web.jpg

Once again, simple, but finely moulded, and the decals work very well...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/body-paint-1/web.jpg

This is the Zero Paints two-part Arancio Argos going on. Top is the base coat completed, bottom is three coats of the top coat. Methinks it needs a bit more "blood red" topcoat to be the way I want it...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/chassis-stig-in/web.jpg

Chassis is done. The parts fit superbly - ie you have to remove the paint layers from mating surfaces for them to fit! The polycaps are a dog to get into position, but do the job brilliantly. And this convinces me that we will be able to see the braking effect when it's done!

bestest,
M.

nice! cant wait to see some clear on it. or maybe even a satin finish?? are you going to have fire spitting out of the exhaust like the car on Top Gear?

Yes. Yes, I am...

bestest,
M.

This car is great and I think your in action concept with the rotors is awesome!!!!
I cant wait to see it done!

That is great.
Andy

Here's where we are tonight:

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/body-n-chassis/web.jpg

Lots of orange...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/body-coloured/web.jpg

This is just the Zero base colour. I think they are superb paints, but I found it took a while to get the two-part colour to be even and the right colour depth. Make sure you spray the doors and engine panel and body all together to finish, so the colour is identical! I think this is ready for clear now, though...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/stig-in-progress-2/web.jpg

The close-up's a bit unforgiving, but Stig is nicely under way now.

bestest,
M.

coming along nicely!

wow. the color's something else. makes the car glow. :)

Thanks, guys... you want to see glow...?

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/shiny1/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/shiny2/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/shiny3/web.jpg
And that's the clear coat on. This is Zero Paints two-pack clear, which is currently at the "tack-free" stage. By the weekend it should be thoroughly dry, and I can polish out the odd speck of dust. If anyone wants to offer advice on polishing Zero 2K, then please jump in - I have some Novus plastic polishes, which is what I was going to use, but if anyone has any better ideas, fire away!

bestest,
M.

Wow! That's beautiful! I cannot speak for the zero 2k but I wet sand with 3200-12000 grit papers then polish with meguirs show car glaze (they might call it machine glaze now) using Novus polishing cloth. All those sharp edges would make me nervous though! Some tricky & tight places on this one...

Stunning colour!

Thanks, guys... the consensus seems to be micromesh, and lots of "elbow grease" (eg it takes longer than you think...)

My driver's finally turned up for work...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/stig2/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/stig3/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/stig-1/web.jpg

Not much else to see at present - I've been fitting the etched grilles everywhere, and masking and paint the glass. The clearcoat on the body is hard enough to polish out a few dust speckles now, which will be the next task, then there will be a flurry of assembly. I also need to finish painting the head and tail light interiors, which are HIDEOUSLY complex...

bestest,
M.

Different scale, but I spent 30 hours standing the paint on my 1/12 Countach. I thought I'd never get rid of the Orange peel, lol, but turned out nice. Still had to watch those edges tho

Nice work on the stig and the car! I believe that although the rear brakes aren't as much stressed as the front, they still glow a bit given the current glow the front rotors have. Maybe something less pronounced like dark red but they do still glow.

Just something to look into. =)

Edit: Or did I miss something epic in Top Gear lately?

Top gear WAS pretty epic:

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/glow/web.jpg

I think getting the brakes glowing cames as a bit of a surprise to Clarkson, too! You can see that the front discs are nicely lit up, but nothing visible at the rear. If I had to guess it would be that not only is the main braking effort greater at the front (hence the larger rotors) but that some clever stuff in the ABS/traction control/FWD/stability enhancement systems is also working the front brakes harder the way Clarkson's driving it...

bestest,
M.

Top gear WAS pretty epic:

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/glow/web.jpg

I think getting the brakes glowing cames as a bit of a surprise to Clarkson, too! You can see that the front discs are nicely lit up, but nothing visible at the rear. If I had to guess it would be that not only is the main braking effort greater at the front (hence the larger rotors) but that some clever stuff in the ABS/traction control/FWD/stability enhancement systems is also working the front brakes harder the way Clarkson's driving it...

bestest,
M.

No kidding! Thanks for filling me in on the braking thing!

Very nice work, I love it!

Thanks, gentlemen: a good milestone tonight:
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/mock-up/web.jpg

The chassis pretty much snaps into place, supported on two pins at the back and tabs at the front. I wouldn't like to do it too often before finishing (the rear pins are slim), but you can see that it does all go together nicely.

Moving along:
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/body-with-grilles/web.jpg

I'd suggest removing the pins that hold the grilles in - they have flanges that locate them perfectly well, and the pins prevent them slipping in fully (the engineering on this kit is superb, but the tolerances are so tight that you can only just get away with painting it before assembly, and a clearcoat that has any thickness causes problems...)

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/engine-bay/web.jpg

If you WANT to have the engine bay opening, you'll have to rework the cut lines (the part that is separate in the kit is the whole upper rear quarter panel... in real life the panel lines you can see around the window bay, with the T-shaped bit on the right in this image, mark the engine cover opening). I've fixed the separate part down, and I will delineate the opening part with the way I highlight the panel lines. If you DON'T open the engine bay, then as you can see, it looks OK, even without the window blades.

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/components/web.jpg

The main assemblies. After the mock-up earlier, I'm confident that they will all fit together nicely. I've read good things about the fit of the window glass into the body, so I'm hoping that progress will be speedy...

And finally...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/flames/web.jpg

The two moments in the Top Gear supercar challenge segment filmed at Imola that put an "action build" of this kit in my mind were the glowing brake discs, and the "blue flames" spitting from the exhaust, which really emphasised what a barely-tamed fire-snorting beast the Aventador is. This car is all about presence, and even though it has all the tech (like the McLaren and the 458), it's somehow vastly more "dramatic". If I was buying one as a daily drive, it'd be the McLaren; if I was buying one as a weekend drive, it'd be the 458; but if I was buying one for pure, balls-out, in-your-face fun, it'd be the Aventador. So, this model isn't complete without blue flames. I've been thinking about this for a while, and then I spotted an abandoned soap bubble blowing kit that the kids had left lying around, which was contained in a cylinder of pale blue plastic, as you can see. After some experiments, I discovered you can melt it and mess with it with cocktail stick. A bit of Citadel white, and some yellow ink, later, and this is where we are. They are trimmed to fit into the exhausts, but I'll do that late in the build, so I don't knock them off!

Next up, the lights. There's some complex detail painting to do there...

bestest,
M.

Sickoossom! That is a nice build! And the Stig is very nicely done!

wow! adding the flames is a great idea! if only i could do jeremy clarkson's voice and say "SWEEEEET!" :)

Thanks, guys...

Slow but steady progress today.

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/tail-lights/web.jpg

These rear lights are a pain! OK, I've made life more difficult for myself by needing to show the darn things actually on, while braking, but they are very complex even without that added wrinkle. I think that today's LED lights and Xenons will need a whole different approach from what we're used to. No longer is a transparent part that you can paint the back of silver and colour in lenses where needed enough. A large part of this light unit is black plastic, and as you can see the "indicator" and "stop light" elements have several parts. I've yet to see how it works in real life, but the "sideways-Y" parts appear to be both brake lights and indicators (with a rather cool > >> >>> effect).

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/rear-view_2/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/engine-bay-with-glass/web.jpg

With the blades in place, my feeling that the engine is detailed enough was confirmed... YMMV, obviously!

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/body-coming-together/web.jpg

...and this is where I'm at tonight.

Home straight tomorrow, I reckon...

bestest,
M.

Those tail lights look great. Excellent job on those and the entire model!

Such a creative thought about the subject and you are pulling it off perfectly so far!
Andy

Superb! I love this thing! Great job on these details!

coming along nicely!

nice work on the tailights! are you going to edge the door windows in black?

Making good progress...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/light/web.jpg

The headlights require some complicated painting! I decided not to go for the recommended "silver" for the main light. I had a look at the Xenon's on my car, and several others in the local supermarket car park, and it's much more like a grey "eyeball", which is what I've tried to do here. The white "Y" really IS a white painted shape in the black housing, and the little lenses are silver tips on a black tube. This is an unforgiving close up... and it looks fine from a reasonable distance.

And another major milestone: the chassis and body are now together...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/together-at-last/web.jpg

It snaps into place quite well. I'd attached the doors to the body before fitting the two together, but I think in retrospect that's better done afterwards. The photos exaggerate the "edge glint" on the windows. It's hard to know what to do about that. The windows do just stick out of the top of the doors -- no frame, no tint, just plain sheets of glass. Maybe a black edge would have toned down the reflection, but there isn't one in real life.

Just detail work to do now, before I add the flames, and work on the base...

bestest,
M.

Man thats looking perfect!!!

Thanks, mate, and thanks also to another nice Antipodean chap on another forum for spotting that the engine bay window surround is black, not body coloured! Fortunately, the blades were glued in with Formula 560 PVA, so after softening it with some strategically applied water for an hour or so, I could pop them off again. 20 minutes of masking and three minutes of spraying later, and here we are:

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/engine-compartment-backened/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/back-in-black/web.jpg

...it certainly looks much better to me.

Otherwise, it's more or less time for decals, with just the windscreen wipers to add of the detail parts...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/front-corner/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/sideview/web.jpg
Tonight I'll get the flames on!

bestest,
M.

yeah! flame on! :)

updates look good.

Thanks... and apologies for the picture-heavy post!

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/rear-on-track/web.jpg

As you can see, the beast is now spitting blue flames. The blue is actually transparent, although the lighting doesn't show it to best advantage. The number plate is a correct Italian one from http://www.licenseplates.tv/european-plates.html, and the number is deduced from many viewings of the Top Gear film and the plates on test cars in Evo and Top Gear magazine. Because I'm a sad number plate obsessive, I've also discovered that Jeremy drove two different Aventadors at Imola. If you look really, REALLY carefully, there's one that has a front number plate, in shot very briefly in a couple of sequences, and one that doesn't (the one he drove in the majority of the film). I suspect that after he cooked the brakes, he took out one of the Lamborghini Academy cars, which was conveniently the same colour...

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/side-on-track/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/rear-side-on-track/web.jpg
http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/left-side-on-track/web.jpg
Construction of the car is now complete. I need to do the decals, and fine-tune the surface finish, but I'm pretty happy with it now.

http://gallery.me.com/cmatthewbacon/100426/on-track/web.jpg

The base is just getting started. The track is a texture from an open source track from a race simulation. A nice track-designer chap called Ennis Fargis provided it for me after I sent him the Google Earth KMZ file for the corner at Imola I was after. I then blew it up and motion-blurred it in Photoshop. It needs to be mounted up properly, and I'm still debating exactly how to present it. But it is achieving exactly the effect I was aiming for...

I'm away from the bench for a couple of days now, but I think we're on the finishing straight!

bestest,
M.

That is by FAR the BEST thing ive seen this year!!! LOVE the base, great idea! & the Lambo looks stunning!!!

definitely a very creative build! the blurry track's perfect!

This is so cool!! Looks fantastic too!! Love it!!

Great diorama!