Tamiya 14084 Kawasaki ZX-12R
This project started October 2001, (almost) completed October 23 2001.
This kit's release came as a surprise to me, since it isn't the most popular current motorcycle model by far, many people excpected a Honda Fireblade or a Suzuki GSX-R as Tamiya's next road bike release and so did I, but this is a very welcome kit because the machine it replicates is brutally powerful, blindingly fast and very pretty and at the same time very useful.
Builds of this kit on the internet generally looked gorgeous, so I got inspired to build my kit to see for myself.

Preparing and painting the bodywork
I started here as usual, and decided to glue the rear seat cover into place immidiately rather that fitting it at the end, as I feared paint build up could make the fit less accurate. There is very little fitting and very few join lines to attend to, only the tank and the rear cowling needs some attention.
I decided to paint the bike deep blue metallic and choose Modeler's B-09 monte carlo blue (the can is called C-36) for this, I ordered it in a bottle from Rainbow Ten in Japan (280 yen) and thinned it with regular laquer thinner before applying it with the airbrush. I laid down 3-4 coats wich got gradually thicker, the color looked good but somehow a lot of orange peel developed, maybe I should have thinned it some more but never mind, it can be rubbed flat and that's excactly what I did using 1000 grit, then 2000 grit and finally 3600 grit abrasives.
I am lazy so I didn't apply any base coat or primer.
After the decals was applied and had dried I applied several coats of Modeler's super clear wich in time was rubbed and polished to obtain a deep, shiny finish.

Decaling
The decal sheet comes with some "torn paper" grapics that Kawasaki used for their 2001 edition, but I wanted a plain look and went for the 2000 bike, applying only the basic ZX-12R and Kawasaki logos. I didn't apply the various warning stickers since owners remove them anyway.
Otherwise the decals went down fine and I had no problems.

Detailing
Not much that can be added since the kit is so beatifully crafted and generously detailed, but at least I could add a protective bracket to the exhausts, some wire to the carburettors, a few hose clamps made from wire strands and of course drill out the brake discs and the foot rest's protective plates.
The kit comes with chrome metal stickers for the sliding part of the front fork and the mirrors, these looked very good and was a welcome addition. There's also pre-colored blinkers and tail lights wich means less work and a better end result for those with basic skills and basic tooling, a feature I welcome.

The chassis
The chassis features lots of details that provides insight to the mechanics of the real bike, and allthough this is hidden on my sample the kit can be assembled with unpainted bodywork to display some of this, since the bodywork has a green tinted transpatent appearance out of the box.
In my usual "hope this works" manner I slammed the frame and engine together along with the ram air intakes and just sprayed everything semi-gloss black with tamiya TS-29.
Most of the remaining parts was primed with Tamiya X-18 acrylic semi gloss black except for the mirrors and some minor parts wich I painted with Humbrol gloss black enamel.
I sprayed the rear swing and the lower parts of the front forks Alclad alu along with the brake discs (those were later drybrushed with some tamiya X-19 smoke) the magnesium engine covers with Tamiya XF-28 dark chopper (wich I later toned down with Tamiya X-19)
The brake calipers and inner part of the brake discs was sprayed with alclad pale gold, the front fork's main parts got a mix of alclad pale gold and chopper, and for the exhaust pipe I used a thin coat of x-24 clear yellow, and the foot rests and brackets got some alclad alu and some highly polished alu wich I tried to blend and shade to make it look err...well..interesting!
Otherwise I painted according to the instructions I guess..

Conclusion
This kit must be Tamiya's best to this day motorcycle-wise, everything just looks so good and fits so well, there's no sink marks to remove and almost no mould lines to sand down, and the end result came out highly satisfying, the time spent really paid off. Do yourself a favour and build this kit!

Preliminary pictures: