Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (12)

I really cannot imagine how my profession would have impact my modeling this much... I have taken in fact almost 2 years to have this kit build straight! OMG I really cannot believe this is happening to me....

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (11)

As the IS300 was being done, I have started to put up stuffs for the Altezza.

I really do not want the kit to be abandoned for any longer so I am doing it straight ahead.

I have no idea what and how the cockpit for this one made race should looks like. I had a couple of picture for this race but it was really hard to know what were the details.

The best I could have got is from the Advan Altezza which I barely know if it is in the same category as this one. So I decided to just pull up some of my own ideas. It will has a race driver side but I am keeping the rest as a street car, mainly to shorten the time I spend thinking on what they should be. And it is just much easier to give those details from the kit itself.

Anyway, I backed the passenger seat with plastic sheets. and fill up some of the details exactly the same as the IS300.

As I have found the ride height is a bit off from the IS300, I have worked some tricks on the front suspensions, to lower the ride height.

I got a nice buckle seat from some of the left over from previous kits. It is really good to have those parts kept for future use. I am almost done with the prep work and is ready to start the painting.

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (10)

Eventually, this Lexus is now ready to go. The front suspensions seem a bit off and giving a higher ride from the photos. But I managed to put it into better height at the end. Let me get her a nice pair of number plate and she will be boxed properly.

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (9)

After leaving the pair alone for quite some time, I decided to get it a run to finish them off before he end of the year.

I started with the stock IS200. The cockpit has been prepared for some minor adjustments before paints.

You will see some gap between the console and the floor in the following pics, so what I did was to fill the gaps with some filling and sanding.

The shifter was also reshaped by plastic rod.

The back of the front seats are filled.

After all these minor adjustments, I have painted the interior with Flat Black and some highlights.

And afterward, the body was polished with very easy effort as the coating on this is just the Gunze GX100, which has been dried for months.

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (8)

After having one of the STI finished, I have moved my focus on this Altezza now.

I started polishing it a few days ago and the Gunze GX100 looks really promising.

Yet, I do prefer the strength and transparency of any of the 2K coatings. I do not really need to pay too much attention for not rubbing off any paints with 2Ks, since its strength other features already help a great deal.

Anyway, the body of this Altezza is now ready and I just need to prepare the rest of the painting including chassis and cockpit, which will be really straight forward.

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (7)

As the protective coat has been left dry for a few days, it is time to start the final step to prepare the complete body livery. I masked for the white number tag spaces and painted with Gunze GX-1 so the cracked parts are covered up along with a much whiter color.

Then the remaining number decals are on.

The worst part of the decal damages are on the roof where the red strips are broken quite seriously. I have repainted the broken parts with Finisher Bright Red with a steady mix of white color to get the right blending towards the decal color. It looks quick successful try and it proved my luck here~ ^.^

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (6)

After different stage of decal work, clear coating for protection, repainting and cycles... it finally become a 'decalled" work. I still need another round of coating and repainting for some of the colors. But at least by now the main graphics are intact! I am so glad about finishing such a old but pretty livery with just some problems. ^^

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (5)

The silver areas have to be managed in quite a details way. I need to mask some of the lines from here and there and the lines need to be very sharp to replicate as closely as the decals used to be. I spend an hour or so doing this and finally I managed to give some silver spaces on the ride.

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (4)

These are some close up pictures about the cranking decals. It looks fine after the protection clear coat and I will be giving silver refinish to it.

And I also put decals for the street version as well. Anyway, it is the way it goes with silver rides. The silver emblems never show up properly.... LOL

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (3)

I started to work on the body work for both kits this week. I was trying to lay the decals for the race machine but my Lord the decal has aged! It is a 10-year-old decal sheet anyway and the decal started to fall into pieces even on slight motions.... I spent almost an hour to lay the decal on the roof and the hood. I guessed I will need much repainting work on it and the rest of the silver areas will be taken up with spraying work as well... I decided to work this out as hard as I can as I like this livery so much that I still want to finish it after this 10 years. (I have built one 10 years before)

The street version will be in silver color as I like it a traditional export version rather than the Japanese Altezza version. I used Gunze SM01 for the silver.

I applied a very light clear coat on both as of now so I can move on with the rest of the decal/ repainting.

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza (2)

Tonight I've got a chance to pick up the air brush to work on some spraying. So I have both of these body parts painted. I will be getting a gloss coat on it the other day before I work on any decal works with them...

Lexus IS200 x Toyota Altezza

Here I am starting a new project. This is a twin build for these 2 "classic"s in the early 2000.

One will be a one-made racing livery and the other is a street salon.

Again this is going to be a straight forward build and I don't really have the intention to add a lot of scratch building stuffs here. Hope I can complete both of these within Q2 2013~~

LOL