Finished Projects: Zokusha Celica & Stanced MarkII

So I am proud to announce that I finished 2 projects and in the same year mind you...lols I have a hard time getting projects done with in a short time frame. I managed to get 2 of them done with in 4 months. Takes me back to the years when I would have 3-4 projects going on at the same time, well I was only a teen trying to stay out of trouble. Now I only get the night hours to build and what ever free/alone time I get.

First I'll start with the Celica. It has influences from the bosozoku and kyusha styles from Japan. The paint job is a pattern often seen on bosozoku cars. Multicolors and decals add to the infulence of the silohuette racers of the past. I chose the Fujitsu Ten decals from a race Mark III Supra. The star shape exhaust is another styling que from the boso and some shakotan cars. Lowered stance(Shakotan) is a must, along with some Oni-Kyan (demon camber) to tuck in those deep offset SSR Shadow spoke wheels. Usually you would see a wild body mod like huge over fenders to house those wide wheels, but opted to stay in the kyusha (original) state of mind and just made an over sized front air dam to match the star shaped exhaust pipe and race inspired oil cooler hanging out front. The interior stayed fairly stock and mild. It just rocks a pair of AE86 front seats, shifter boot with long crystal knob and a pair of old school Pioneer TS-X11's on the rear deck.

Now the MarkII got done as well. The guy over in Japan are now loving the Stance and Hellaflush movement that is currently going on here in the U.S. Although its a trend that's been going on for decades, it's new image of deep and wide wheels being pushed to the limits of OEM body lines has gotten even more extreme than its past trend setters. Stance is the style I went with on this one.

I built this one for a contest on the Model Scientists forum. The contest was meant to be a 3 month time frame, but the admin decided to give us another month. And good thing too, I was like half done when the 3rd month came around. haha. The body kit was slightly altered to give it a lower meane stance. The rear suspension was slightly lowered and given some more camber, as for the front, just some more camber was needed as the hieght was just right. The paint color is Mint Apple or just mint green. It's a nail polish that my significant other chose out of the line up. Not a bad choice either. I had some issues with it at first, but that was due to my airbrush not having a needle big enough to give me a bigger spray pattern. I also couldn't find all the parts needed to use the bigger needle. Luckily my badger 350 single action airbrush stepped up to the plate and gave me the chance to lay down the color. For the clear I used Testors one coat gloss once again. I think I love this paint. Although you need more than one coat, it comes out nice and shiney. For wheels I went with some Gartmiers with a deeper offset. Gloss black face with aluminum polished lips. The interior also stayed mild. It has a pair of Recaro seats and a momo style steering wheel.

Specs: Zokusha Celica
Kit: Aoshima Grand Champ V.1
Wheels: Aoshima Kai SSR Shadow Spoke, Alclad Airframe Aluminum with Tamiya Titanium Gold centers wrapped in Hippari tires
Paint: Tamiya Pure White, Brilliant Blue and Light Blue
Interior: 80's Blue from Duplicolor ninyl paint with dark blue flocking on rear deck and carpet, Aoshima AE86 seats  and shift boot, Aoshima Kai "crystal knob shifter and Pioneer TS-X11 deck speakers.
Exhaust: Star Shape Pipe from Bosozoku accessories kit painted duplicolor Fire red and weathered with citadel black was and tamiya soot and oil stain weathering kit.
Exterior: OEM fender mirrors, yellow tint head light housing, Boso style front air dam, Race decals and grand champ/kyusha decals, external mount oil cooler

Specs: Stanced MarkII
Kit: Aoshima Formula D1 WELD Racing
Wheels: Aoshima Gartmiers with deep lips wrapped in MS Corp hippari stretch tires. Centers painted in Alclad Gloss black with Alclad Polished Aluminum lips
Paint: Mint Apple Green nail polish shot through airbrush, Testors One Coat Gloss
Exhaust: OEM muffler and piping with styrene tube for tip, painted in Alclad Stainless Steel
Exterior: WELD Racing body kit, front bumper and sideskirts were modded to be lower to the ground, BMF chrome on window and door trim, front mount intercooler.

Thanks for stopping by. Now on to the other dozen projects I have in progress.

Updates On My Projects

As usual I seem to leave the updates on my projects last. I try my best to keep this spot up to date, but life just gets in the way of doing so.

The Celica has some chassis detailing done and sits on it's wheels now. First I started by modding a cross member from a Fujimi Ae86. I cut off the oil pan and splash guard details adjusted the arms and got a better looking member than what it had. Then I lightly weathered the chassis with the Tamiya weathering sets and a bit of a black wash from Citadel paints. The tail lights were painted with Tamiya clear red sprayed through my airbrush. I have also been working on the interior. I flocked the rear deck and carpet area with some flocking powder from Michaels art store. The seats were taken from aoshima AE86 kit that I "dirtied" a little using the citadel wash. I also used the shifter boot and gauge cluster decal. Im using the shifter from the Aoshima Kai wheel sets. They come with some extra parts and one of them are the clear shift knobs that come in different lengths and designs. I also used some Pioneer TS-X11 speakers, yeah old school beats..I'm a Wu Tang Clan fan, so thats what I'll be bumping..lols

Now, the Mark II has been getting some love as well. I mentioned that it's for an online contest on the Model Scientists forum. Well the deadline is this saturday...I'm pushing myself to finish it on time. I lagged it a bit on this one, but it's getting really close to being done. Now I'm thinking "damn, is it possible? I'm actually going to finish not only one, but 2 models this year??" of course it will be more than 2, but I'll save that for later.. I painted the details on the chassis which consist of the molded in engine, transmission and exhaust. The front and rear suspension is glue in place, which can only mean that my Stance is locked in. Rotors were painted with titanium silver and titanium gold. The calipers were done in transparent yellow. The chassis still needs a couple of parts to call it done, but they are on the way to being glued in place. The interior parts were painted in tan. I'll be using some Recaro seats. I printed up some plaid pattern decals that I hope will work. if not then maybe next time. Now, the body has recieved it's final putty call and has been sprayed in mica silver from Tamiya. I tried to find the .5mm set for my Iwata airbrush, but had no luck on finding the last part needed to use it. So I wipped out my Badger 350 and got the large tip out and went to town with. Unfortuantely I was asked by the dude running the contest to leave that update till saturday...ooooh the suspense...lmao.

My 67 Impala is just chillin and waiting to get done...lols how ever I did chrome up the frame using Alclad II gloss black base and chrome. It came out good for my first time using chrome the proper way. I also sprayed some of the interior tan from duplicolor vinyl paints. I person it looks just like vinyl..

Thats about it for today. I'll be getting back to work on these tonight, so I hope to have some more later on.

Thanks for stopping by.

Zokusha Celica, Impala & Mark2 Update

Today is the day of the Bull, well at least for me it is. It's my 31'st birthday and I'm spending the first half at work...haha gotta make that money..lols So far, so good though. All 3 of my builds have some updates due on here.

First the Celica, it's the one that is coming close to getting done and hopefully before the weekend. I have clear coated, painted the window trims black, added decals to the body, painted the interior, chassis and wheels. I still need to make a muffler for the star and do some detail painting to the interor.

Second is the Impala. This one still has a ways to go but I have applied some BMF to the window trim, lower sills and wheel arches. I only have one picture of this one...so it's like a teaser. Although I have primered the chassis, frame and rear end and painted the some of the interior in a tan color.

Third is the Stanced Mark2. This one so far has been one of my favorite builds cause it's coming along pretty nice and it will be the first build to ever get a paint job with nail polish. So far I have worked on the front bumper(has been puttied since that last pic) and painted some of the suspension parts. The chassis has recieved its coat of paint. It's a teaser to my choice in color, it's called "apple mint" my wife thought it was a nice color and I thought so too. A color like this on a big ass 4 door sedan slammed to the floor should look sick, the only thing now is, what color should I do the interior?? typically it would be a tan color or even black..but I already have done several black interiors, might just go with a darker tan.

That's about it for now. I promise to take more pics of my progress as it's more than I am showing you here. Till next time.

Thanks for stopping by.

Celica & MarkII Updates

Here's a small update on my Celica and MarkII.
I was debating on what type of lip spoiler to use, it was either a mild chin type spoiler, a FOHA style or step it up a notch and slap a Jay Leno style chin spoiler...haha, Jay Leno it is...check it out.

It needs a bit of cleaning up along the outer edeges, but so far I'm loving the way it looks.
The MarkII got some bumper work done. I had to fill in some gaps and add a bit of missing details of how the bumpers actuall mount up. The side skirts also gome some putty and styrene treatment to add a bit of flare. The wheel choice was changed as well. The Work Miesters needed too much work to get them the way I want them. So I opted on a set of Aoshima 18" VIP Gartmier wheels with a bit of a change. I used the stretched tires from the work wheels and added extra lip for some more depth.

Thats about it for now. You can see my Impala in the back there, it's primered and ready for some paint...That will be the next update as I have made some goodies for it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Shakotan Celica XX: WIP's

Aaaahhh, Cali. You gotta love it at times. The sun, ocasional rain, snow in the mountains, the girls and days like today make you wish that the sun part will be around. But nooooo it's 8:30am and its foggy, gloomy and no sign of the sun yet. Not only that, but it's suppose to rain tonight! Your probably thinking, "WTF does that have to do with your Celica build??" Well for one, can't paint! It's do damn cold and humid and second, my sinus' are kicking my ass today so I officially am not enjoying the day in more than one way.

Now onto my builds, oh did I say builds?? yup, that plural. I'm currently working on 3 builds, 2 of which I'm hoping to finish for the Citrus Nationals in Riverside on May 19th. But if I keep getting days like this, I will have to enter them as WIP's.

The first one is Aoshima's Toyota Celica XX Garuchan seires. It comes with a lowered stance and some of their Kai series wheels that gives this on a semi shakotan look. I bought this kit back on 2001 at my LHS with the intentions of only using the wheels for another project I had going at the time...haha, I know I'm not the only one that does it..As of a month ago I decided to start on it. Out of the box the stance is not so low and the wheels stick out more than I like. Even if that was the intention of this kit, I personally didn't want it. So I filed away at the inner wheels arches and "rolled" the fender lips. I also lowered it some more to my liking. I started to prep the body for primer by sanding away any mold lines, deepened the panel lines and sanded the body down for the primer to grab onto it. I chose to use Aoshima's Techno Shadows wheels with Hippari tires instead of the kits SSR MKII's, well because I used them on my Shakotan 280ZX already...haha. Next, was the option to use a star shaped exhaust that comes in the new Aoshima "extra posie" sets. They are pretty much bosozoku parts and wheels in a bag.

The 2nd one is a 1967 Impala Lowrider. Hmmmm, something different, something that originally got me back into the hobby some 15 years ago. Even though I have only built one Lowrider and tinkered with a few others at the tender age of 16, I still consider this one my 2nd Lowrider build. I chose this body year do to it curves and aggressive looking front end. It's the Super Sport edition as well, so it's got some balls under the hood and I'm keeping it that way. I using AMT's Street Machine series, it has some pretty good details. Seperate frame and chassis, suspension components are not molded into the chassis and the engine is nicely detailed with some nice extra goodies. There are some down sides to the kit that I ran into and trying my best to fix. First was the bodies panels lines and details around the windows. The panel lines were deepend, one had to be made by the rear window and trunk lid, or else it would look like a lift back Impala. Around the window trims, the body was trimmed down a bit so they can stand out and not get lost when the paint goes one. The hood had some gaps all around, so styrene strips where added to fill that in enough to a more resonable gap. I decieded that I want the front end in a raked up pose, so the rear was dropped as far as possible and the front end was brought up. The front end had to be reworked in order to go in the up position. I made some tubular style A-arms and added a bit of round stock to the lower control arms to pivot them in position. I'll have to take pics of that, just noticed that I didn't do so. I went with Pegasus "D" wheels with their new stretched look tires with thin white walls. As for paint, I'll be using Testors De Ja Blue and Wet look clear gloss. Should be nice.

The 3rd one is a Toyota MarkII for an online forum contest, Stance Wars. I have absolutely no actual progress on this one. It does need work to fit the bumpers on correctly, but it's gonna be bitchin. Slammed stance and some deep offset wheels is always sexy. I am using Aoshima's Welds D1 kit. don't let the cover fool you either as it doesn't come with any D1 interior parts. Yup no gutted interior, no roll cage, hell not even the correct seats to make a replica Weld MarkII drift car. It's all cosmetic, wheels, body kit and decals give it the look of the D1 car. I have chosen to not use the decals from the kit, I'll be saving them for something else. I'm not using the wheels it comes with, I'm not even using the ones in the pictures...It's going to be a slow progress as I'm concetrating on the first 2 builds at the moment.

Here are the pics, I know FINALLY!

Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully I can have some more updates soon.