[Customs] You May Be Cool...

But you'll never be diamond-studded cool. Here are some rather silly ideas I came up with about a month ago which plays on sticking dollar-store stickers on the body of the car. It plays on the kitschy idea of embellishing material with precious diamonds.



Base model is a 1998 First Editions '65 Chevy Impala. The yellow tampos have been removed.



Taillights and badge have been coloured as well. Nothing else has been touched as there wasn't a need to tamper with anything else. As such, this guy has not been disassembled.





Here's a crummy Chevy S-10 I bought back when I was still new to collecting and grabbed anything remotely cool or different. I had this disassembled for about a year, had nothing done to it, and while I was digging through my bin of donors to find something to put these diamonds other than the Impala above (as I was hesitating due to the clean purple paint job). Naturally, the truck was lowered even more than it already was.



Lights, badge, mirrors and exhausts were detailed.

Having a bit of fun, here's some silly Impact-outlined captions to compliment the notion:


Shoutouts to Shinji for "So money". Diamonds, dollar signs, and big shiny wheels. Doesn't get more money than that.





Bling on!



What are some unusual materials you've used to make your custom cars?

[Customs] Hold the Phone! There's Another 7 Arriving!

It's been a busy week. I've logged probably 6 hours of painting, both spray and by hand - bodies, wheels and windows! The Illustrious Series are still in the works, as is the Dream Cruisers. There were a bunch of simple customs I had in the queuing box so I decided to take a break from the main series and do a handful of these to lighten the load.


Table of Contents:

1) '62 Corvette (wheeslwap)
2) '66 Chevy Nova (lowered)
3) Ferrari 333SP (wheelswap)
4) Jaguar XJ220 (wheelswap)
5) Lotus Sport Elise (restoration)
6) Nitro Doorslammer (wheelswap)
7) Mercedes G500 (black series)

'62 Corvette

Like the paintjob, hated the wheels in the back. I remember wanting to put this back on the pegs but I decided a wheelswap wouldn't hurt.

'66 Chevy Nova

Found the other Hot Wheels Racing Chevy Nova! Previously blacklisted - now a casting I'm after. I'll bet there's a black Hot Wheels Racing livery somewhere in the bin.

Ferrari 333SP

I had two of these and decided to break one for its wheels for another custom a long time ago, but this neat-o race car couldn't go to waste so I figured I could at least save it for the Illustrious series. However, I then managed to buy a duplicate mainline casting to replace the old First Editions I had scribbled paint marker on back in 2001, so this no longer needed to be painted any more. Don't regret this decision at all. The gold LWs look magnificent on it!

Jaguar XJ220

Also took this apart for the wheels. The Jaguar tampo looks great, all it needed was a new set of wheels. Simple enough. It looked great at first, now I'm having second thoughts. Personally, I think lowering it would've greatly enhanced the image. I might have to go redo that in the future.

Lotus Sport Elise

The urge to do something to this came about out of nowhere. Had I not visited Talize, I wouldn't even have this in my possession. Talize is a thrift store so you can probably reach the conclusion the body was beat up. Other than the rusted axles, there was minimal paint chips, and fortunately enough I have a gold metallic marker which more or less matched the paint.

Nitro Doorslammer

Here's yet another car that was originally planned for the Illustrious series. I actually have a small box full of cars that are going to be saved for it. This orange casting of the Doorslammer happened to be one that grew on me over time and no longer had the will to replace it. It sat in the box with chrome RR5SP wheels with white line tires, and that looked incredible with the orange which triggered my hesitation. The face I didn't have white line tires for the front lead to me looking for alternative choices. As if the timing couldn't have been any better, I had recently drilled open a Speed Machines Ford GTX-1 for its CM6 wheels and voila, I found a car that will accept the size-3 wheels! Gray alone wasn't enough so I had matched that image of the white rim by painting the wheels.

Latest entry into the Black Series:

Mercedes G500
(project brief)
 

Wished I had chrome paint - had to settle with silver. Still happy with it overall. What I definitely need to figure out with the tools and supplies I have is a way to get any cars to shine like a waxed car. Unlike the other customs presented so far, this one relies on the highlights to really contrast with the black finish.

Here's a sneak peek at what's to come:

Those who follow me on Facebook have already seen this. "Like" Epic Collage on Facebook now so you don't miss out on any updates!

[Diecast] The Zac Box - Part 1

Stuff came in. Photos got taken. The queue list of customs just keeps growing. Chance of insanity goes up. Post gets made.

Got a bunch of neat looking Motor Maxes and Johnny Lightnings. Except they rock some funky wheels I'm not that fond of. Will save these, everything you see carded, the Firebird and the bag of LW wheels for future customs.

First Editions Austin Healey 100

Chevy Avalanche (Blings)

Ford Fiesta (Team HW)

Datsun 240Z (Holidays)

 Also forgot to post this one from last time.

Because the 10pack I bought had one, I now have an extra carded.

[WIP] One-Offs Sneak Peeks

With the start of reading week working through my day, I got time to take out the box full of cars waiting to be cut open. Amongst that pile of metal and plastic are customs that have been waiting to be worked on.

We'll start off on progress update of the Annihilator replica:

That yellow car is a BMW M1 that was in a grab bag at a thrift store. I'm fairly certain its a Majorette casting judging from its wheels, but that's not important so I won't get into that topic. What is important is that I needed was a shutter-type rear window for the Annihilator. The engine was taken off a Morris Wagon. I decided not to go with the VW Beetle after all, because this one had the distinctive V-Block which the Annihilator has itself. How I'm going to frankenstein the 2 bodies - and more importantly the interior piece - back together is going to be a challenge. If you want to get more details on the project parameters, you can visit this post.

(26 Feb Update: Next WIP post)

 Surfin' School Bus - BLINGS Edition

Since the day I blacklisted a bunch of cars (this casting included), I've been taking out cars to sell in a lot. Having a hunch no one would want the 2013 casting Cadillac Sixteen Concept at this time, its wheels were extracted and will be used on this low-riding school bus. If you're familiar with the casting, it uses 2 differently-sized wheels - size 1 in the front (regular size) and size 2 in the back. The size numbers are arbitrarily made up by me (since no one else really has) and it is really helpful when describing specific wheels. Size 2 in this case would be the size bigger than regularly-sized wheels. The Cadillac has size 2s in front and back. This means there's work to be done in the front wheel fender before I proceed any further. What I want to do hasn't been fully decided yet. I just know I want it to looked utterly pimped out.

toon

 The very first Toon car custom to be made!

If it's going to be called Blings, then make it somewhat more appropriate! I have an extra Dodge Ram and will fitting its wheels into this Mercedes G500. I want it to look like that one cosmetically modified G500 I've seen on the road one time. It had a piano black body and the wheels were similar to PR5s, so I'll be using that, painting the spokes black and leaving the rim chrome. Then I'll proceed to get some chrome along the edges of the car. That should sport a more attractive level of "bling" than this orange metal flake paintjob. 

 Hunter Camaro SS - NFS The Run Replica

While the game overall lacked, I really did appreciate the very large selection of cars, but this game was forgotten in record time. One car that was very memorable was the Hunter Camaro, whom you were forced to drive in one of the challenges down a freeway. The car couldn't turn well, but it had an exhilarating amount of power when you ran the nitrous. Its all-matte black appearance makes it a car not to be messed with:

The 5 spoke wheels I took off the Boulevard '64 GTO looks pretty darn close, even the tire thicknesses are similar! I've done enough single-colour customs to know this one can be completed fairly quick so I might just do this one first to get it out of the way, or I can do it later to mix things up. Stay tuned!

kyosho

 Have you wondered what a disassembled Kyosho looks like?

 

I showed some of my Kyoshos to my father and he was unimpressed with their quality. Before you go rampant, he isn't a collector and he has tastes for cars that are unlike car enthusiasts or the mindset of a collector for that matter. To me though, even a plain-coloured Kyosho like this CLK GTR is absolutely stunning. The detailing in the body is excellent, but what makes this really special is how far they went with it. When I was taking the car apart, I was only expecting 5 separate pieces; body, interior, wheels, base and rear wing. I hadn't noticed it before, but when I observed the underside of the body, I noticed there were a lot of riveted parts. I was wowwed at the amount of effort put into the parts. I started drilling out each rivet and before I knew it, there's about 8 more pieces to this model. The windshield and the A-pillar are all one piece, the headlights were one, the bottom and upper grill, the ducts that are situated over the driver's head, and even the vents beside the rear wing. The edges were seamless and had me believing they were all a part of the main body! That's reputable craftsmanship right there.

So now you're probably wondering why I even took one apart. All I will say is that the CLK GTR Roadster is going to make its way into another custom series I haven't yet talked about. You'll just have to wait!