Lexus LFA - 1/24 Tamiya (4)

It's gettig near the end, and it's the part that gets most of the attention: the body. It's kind of sad that with all the work done on the engine and interior, most of them will be covered by the body, almost never to be seen again.........

so back to the body, the grill at teh rear (not sure if that's the correct way to describe it..) was replaced with photo etch parts. Putting them side by side with the original part, you'll see why it's worth the work to put the photo etch part on:

 Like other etch parts, it needs a bit of modification to fit...

and finally: painting. Originally I was going for the Lexus blue, but I just couldn't find the right combination. Surprising there no custom paint for that kind of blue, even Zero Paint doesn't have it. In the end I used:

Mr Color Gundam Blue (11) about 65%
Mr Color Gloss Bright Blue (65) about 20%
Mr Clor Metallic Blue (76) about 15%

and here's the result:

After 4 coats of paint, I added 4 clear coats using Gaia Notes EX-03 Clear. When left dry for a few days, I slightly polished the surface with a 2000 sandpaper, the polish with Mr compound Coarse, then Fine, and finally SuperFine. It's the first time I used Mr Compound, compared with Tamiya's compound, they are alot more watery, making it a bit tricky to use.

And here's the final result:

With the body ready, the other bits and pieces can be fitted onto the body, that's the photo etch parts, the lights, some parts in the engine bay, etc:

Gluing the rear mirror needs a bit of trick. If you put glue straight onto the surface, it'll leave a very ugly glue mark, so what I did is paint the area where the glue is suppose to go (on the wind shield), then stick the mirror on using white glue, no glue marks whatsoever~

All that's left is putting it together and the finishing photos!

Lexus LFA - 1/24 Tamiya (3)

Continuing the LFA...

The final part for the interior - the steering wheel. With carbon fibre pattern:

and the whole interior, the seat belts are black paper used previously on the Mercedes F1 kit:

Next the brakes: 
Putting the photo etch parts on the brakes require some work, first the top part has to be removed, add the PE layer, the glue it back on:

With the PE parts on: 

Up next it's the body, actually at this point in time the body is complete, I'm just finding the time to do the finishing shots.