SpaceHopper

Hi there! It's been a while since my last (and first) post here, feels good to be back with something again. Somehow after posting the previous MOC things quickly rolled back into routine, although I do hoped to join more actively. So yeah, first of all thanks for every comment on that Toyota - necroposting right now would be a bit rude, but also as rude as leaving all these warm welcome words without mention:) We all have guilty pleasures. Mine was once a desire to build a proper rust bucket which real life version would turn people's heads the other way rather than attract looks. After all, these cars also deserve some attention and can be surprisingly challenging to build due to their almost but not completely brick-looking exterior. Apart from the fact that our neighbours had a 2nd gen Frontera in dark turquoise I had no reasons to opt for this exact car, but it alone was enough. The choice of colour fell for dark blue because I would have gone broke getting all the dark turquoise wanted to go with some 90s-like colour, while avoiding the neutral ones like white or gray. Things started getting quite tricky at first, but then 42154 saw the light and provided a great amount of new useful small parts to refine the look. Due to a lot of system used throughout the whole model, its total of over 2 kilos would make motorisation relativelty useless, so from the beginning I went the way of detalising as much as possible, aiming for a full interior, openable doors and a bunch of small details here and there. However, the technical side still includes a 4WD, working independent suspension and steering, which costed me couple of nerve cells in attempts to be done with a proper steering wheel incline and a realistic amount of turnarounds instead of a 90 degrees to each side. As for interior, there was no way to ignore my favourite triangle tiles, which turned out to be a lucky decision not only in making a TRD stripes on a stadium truck, but also in recreating the iconic coloured patterns of car seats common for that time, where every single patch was a shade of dirty gray at some point. I wouldn't say being 100% happy about the result, as there are still some parts here and there looking slightly off despite multiple changes, but that's still been a nice journey with a rather pleasant outcome. After all, the resemblance to original can be also with an Isuzu Rodeo, or, given your eyes are squinted enough, with pretty much every nostalgic junk from the 90s. And, having a piece of a yellow car brand while living pretty close to their factory is somewhat symbolical as well. Thank you a lot and I hope to be back with something new soon - or at least not in a year again!

Hey everyone, guess it's about time to join not only as a reader and provide some content, so, first of all, nice to meet you all:) After a pretty long 4 years' hiatus in building I finally came up with something, and it surely does feel great to be back in the game. The TRD livery always had some special place in my heart - neither i own a Toyota nor am involved in racing (except by sitting on the coach and watching it on weekends, hah), but this colour combo just looks so pleasant. It all started with the triangular tiles forming the diagonal stripes on the sides, until I realized the thing was actually intended to be a technic, not a system model. Previously I usually went with only one of both styles at a time, but this time the livery was absolutely necessary, and using stickers is never the first option. So, the small styles' mashup took place, and it was really, really fun to bring the whole thing to life. Since the completed model turned out to be 1.94kg heavy, the default C+ set of 2L+1M motors which was used has been pretty much struggling everywhere, so this MOC is rather a good dust collector than a truck trial competitor. Anyway, the building process itself was some great journey! Thanks for watching!:)