Kit:  Tamiya Nissan Skyline GT-R V-spec R34 # 24210

Pros:  Another great Tamiya kit. Excellent body shape (and molded in white), loads of molded-in details, almost no mold lines, absolutely gorgeous rims and tires, window masks, synthetic mesh for radiator openings, great interior details, excellent parts fit. Instructions are very clear and give you correct color guide for all possible color combinations. Usual high quality Tamiya decals.

Cons: Curbside. Some undercarriage details are molded-in the chassis plate and difficult to detail-paint. This is pre-metal transfers era kit, so, no metal transfers.

Verdict: This is a great kit of an amazing car, but in my opinion, it lacks some fine detail. I would suggest getting a Studio 27 (or Acu-STion) photoetched detail kit. This will add tremendously to the realism of the model. But this model will also look great even build straight from the box. Highly recommended for beginners and experienced modelers as well.

The body was cleaned, assembled (it's a 5 piece assembly), primed with Tamiya White Surface Primer, and painted Tamiya TS-50 Mica Blue from spray can, to represent Bayside Blue color of the real car.

As you probably noticed, the whole interior and package shelf were carefully flocked. The complete flocking procedure is described in the flocking tutorial that I wrote for BMC. Then dashboard was glued in place.

Great thing about latest Tamiya kits is that there are masking seals for windows provided in the kit, and it makes it so much easier to paint window trim.

This is the picture of completed interior. I also used some washes here and there to bring out some details.

If you prefer to airbrush the trim, mask other side of the glass with regular masking tape to protect it from overspray.

P/E mesh was used everywhere for radiator openings and brake cooling ducts. That GT-R emblem is also a P/E part that was hand painted under the magnifying glass. I screwed it up couple of times, but its easy to start over because its metal....

After painting, I carefully removed the  masks before paint completely dried, as this prevents jagged edges. After all masks have been removed, windows looked nice and clean.

All the badges and emblems on the tail are also P/E details from Studio 27 set. Even the third stop light is a P/E part. If you planning on using this set, do not forget to shave all the emblems and badges off the body before painting.

After body was clear coated, polished, and waxed, I glued windows inside the bodyshell using Krystal Clear window glue. You can use Elmer's white glue here because the fit is perfect.

Now to the chassis. Chassis was molded in gray plastic, so I primed it white and sprayed a mist coat of light blue lacquer to prevent gray bleeding through semi-transparent Mica Blue.

To prevent scratching and marring the paint on the body during buildup process, I used some Tamiya masking tape to protect edges and surfaces of the body.

Then several mist coats and 2 wet coats were sprayed on the chassis. It is very important to wait till the paint on the chassis plate is completely dry before continuing, because there will be a lot of masking and painting on top of these layers.

To add some more realism, I used Studio 27 excellent photoetched detail set ST27 FP2458. Its available from Hobby Search, or HLJ.

The chassis was carefully masked and trimmed according to the Tamiya instructions and several underbody pictures found online.

Instructions suggest interior to be painted in 4 different shades of gray, which involves complicated masking. Door panels were painted light gray and then masked.

Suspension parts were all painted in different shades of black, and assembled. Here is the picture of the rear suspension.

Then I sprayed them German Gray and removed the masks. If you follow Tamiya color guide, the results will be very close to the original paint scheme.

This is the picture of the rear suspension installed on the chassis after it was painting with black and silver.

After that I did some detail painting and installed PE seatbelts. Seatbelts were painted black, and then I scraped paint from the buckles.

The brake disks were painted, detailed, and then I applied P/E rotor faces slightly scratched with fine emery board to simulate brake pads grooves.

The rear seat is molded together with the interior. Seat inserts were painted Sea Gray and masked. Then the whole seat was painted light gray.

The rims were painted with the custom mix of silver and gold metalizers, and then sealed with metalizer sealer. About 3 hours later they were sprayed with few mist coats of Tamiya Clear.

Front bucket seats were painted the same way - sea gray in the middle and light gray overall. Here is the picture of completed front seat.

Completed wheels look very close to the original R34 wheels and the brakes with PE faces accent them really nicely.

After paint was completely dry, I attached PE seatbelt retainers to the front seats. They were touched-up with a bit of red paint to simulate release buttons.

Finally, all other chassis details were installed. Exhaust was painted with aluminum metalizer, sealed and black-washed. Rear stabilizers were installed and all nuts and bolts were picked out with aluminum and burnt metal metalizers.

This picture shows one of the door panels installed together with handbrake and a shifter. I lost the original shifter during assembly (its just disappeared), so I made one from R32 Skyline shifter and used some masking tape (painted black) for the boot.

The engine was painted aluminum and then black-washed. When wash completely dried, I dry-brushed the engine with flat aluminum. The assembly of the front suspension was tricky, but if you are careful, it will not pose any serious problems.

Dashboard. Original pedals were replaced with PE pedals, plus I added some PE details to the instrument cluster and horn button. The rest of the dashboard was detail painted.

This is the picture of the completed chassis. Interior was glued to the chassis, then body was put on top of it all. After addition of small details and chassis stone guard plates, the model was completed.