[Customs] Keyholder 2nd Attempt

Click on the pic for the story on that M3.
That was the first one I made, and it has been out of commission for over a year now.
Many mistakes were made, and this new project is an attempt to correct and see how it plays out.
Before getting to the new model, let's identify what came out of the first model:

1) Stripping the paint eliminated the possibility of revealing noticeable paint wear.
2) Any colour on the body or wheels are bound to come off even with clear coating.
3) The lack of a notch on the base makes it difficult to open up the container with one hand.
4) The location here the keyring is installed is vital. It should not intersect with an axle.
5) Finding a way to have the base hold itself to the body while being easy to open/close is important.


With these observations in mind, here's what I've come up with this time:


I picked a '70 Camaro for two reasons. It has the front spoiler which I can use
to pull the base off easily, and it's not a car that's commonly seen in my area.



I cheated with the keys. Those are still the same set of keys as last time, but
cutting off the sides was necessary if I wanted to keep the rollcage.


The is one of the biggest changes. I've attached magnets on both pieces to join the two together.
It's a classic technique even phone cases utilize today. It definitely works, though the
use of JB Weld is not what I call presentable. JB weld was the choice of epoxy because I favoured
the durability of the product. I'm thinking of epoxy and maybe a thin sheet of plastic
to cover it up so it would look more presentable next time.


The rollcage is something I could've easily passed up, but I took on the challenge since
it would prevent the interior view from the outside from looking like a sloppy hack.


The wheels have not been changed. They've worn out from a few weeks of use.
I'm thinking the next vehicle I choose should be one to sit well with black wheels.

[Customs] Key Organizer, Roll Out! Lamley Contest Submission

It's due! Contest submissions are due, people are frantically trying to finish up. For me, it's just blogging about it now. If you weren't aware of what this project was about, it's a key organizer made with the intentions of protecting my phone from scratches. This contest came around where I identified a possible issue with the new phone I was gifted. Progress was made and shared in a previous post, and contest details are here. The only rule to the contest was to customize a 1992 BMW M3. It left the room open to many interpretations, and hopefully there will be more people who thought of doing something more than just a painted car.

Here's the finished product:

Bare zamac, wite-out used as a base coat for all the detailing, sharpie marker used to fill in any colour and black. Wheels and kidney grill coloured with silver sharpie. Hole drilled through back windshield and chassis plate. The rear wheels had to be offset so the keys would fit inside. I tried not to over do it. It would've been easier if I sculpted a wide body kit and painted over it, but that's only if I painted the body.

 

That's the toy, and here are the keys:

and now finally, what it looks like with the keyring and external attachments.

Top 10, here I come!

Good luck to all contestants.

[WIP] In Before The Paint. Backup Measure.

I'm posting these in case something goes wrong in the clear coating phase.

The likeliness something bad will go wrong is likely around 6%, 17-24% if I get really impatient.


I've never had experience with alcohol-based marker nor correction pens mixing with pigmentless acrylics. There shouldn't be a problem, but again I'm not 100% sure.


Anyhow, this is what the exterior will look like unless I find some extra things to add. A decal might not even be necessary.

Detailed the front end as much as I could. There's a mix of Sharpie's Felt, Fine Tip, Dixon Correction Pen, and a Sakura PIGMA brush.

 I've had to redo the base and as such, the back wheels were lost and I had replaced them. The colour had to go since the front were gold and the back were red in a brilliant finish. I felt black wheels would have made a stronger statement by creating that contrast against the bare zamac body, but alas I want to keep it looking as close to its factory finish, so I twirled the silver metallic Sharpie marker and got a beautiful eggshell finish. I also got the pigma brush to get me a line that separates the door panel and the skirt. It helps keeping continuity with the black bumper strips on both ends.

 Since it's Sharpie markers I'm using, I can't go straight on zamac because it will show up as a tint changer on the bare metal. Establishing a white base was required. I could have used paint but it's late and I didn't want to bust out brushes, a cup of water and paper towels, so I used correction liquid instead. Took a while to get the hang of it, but it still comes out messy because the liquid begins to settle in as little as a second meaning I cannot disrupt the surface without disfiguring the smooth finish any longer. The resulting technique was I blotched more on, scribbling "past the line". It was okay to do this since I could easily remove excess with a knife, which then resulting in visible scratches on the body, but we'll call that a compromise and move on.

The back wheels presented an issue earlier in that the keys wouldn't fit comfortably if I had kept the wheels with stock offsets. I had tried to make the wheels thinner by shaving off the inside mass using a dremel. It got to the point where the wheel spun fast enough to build up heat from the friction of grinding against the mushroomed en of the axle it managed to burrow it in. It wasn't what I originally wanted, but this meant that the wheels were now pushed further away from each other and it's as if the axle length is longer. 

At the end of the day, this is going to be more of a tool to me than an ornament, so if I have to give up a level of beauty for the sake of usability, it will be worth it.

Other than that, the lamps, license plate and emblem were done in with correction liquid, then coloured with Sharpies.

 

A final shot at the front. Spent the most time here. The bumper strip was done in with the Sakura brush-tip marker, the headlamps, secondary lamps, signal lights, license plate, and emblem were also done in with correction liquid, the main grilles were easily done in with the fine tip Sharpie's. The trademark kidney grilles were filled in with the silver sharpie with ease, and the emblem as well as the signal lights were then coloured. If you look closely, you can see I even coloured in the "M3" badge located between the lamp and kidney grille: blue, red, then silver.

All that's left to do is to clear coat the thing to protect the paint for as long as possible (though it's all going to come off eventually through use), fasten the windshield to the body, clean up the inside face of the chassis plate, take some pretty photos and then go Mr. Graphic Designer on it before submitting!

I'm aiming for a position in Top 10, Top 3 as the ultimate goal. Best of luck to all contenders.

The contest details can be found here at Lamley Group.

[WIP] Lamley Contest: BMW M3 Progress

With only a week left to go on this project and my essay at school, will I be able balance both tasks without one being a detriment to the other? Who knows. Hopefully that won't be the case.

In any case, I let this project sit for too long and time just took advantage of that and flew circles around me. I'm very disappointed with my current progress. I'm certain this entire project could be completed in one day yet I'm still not done. Many problems were had and I only sought to experiment with solutions even though that would take up even more time.

So what is it I'm making for Lamley Group's very first diecast customs contest? I've never told anyone before, but I finally decided to reveal it now since we've only a week left.

With no specific goal given to us, the open-ended parameters left me and my indecisive self hanging for days because I just could not think of what I could or wanted to do.

At first I was going to take advantage of my school's 3D printer and make a pedestal display and do a C4D polygon digital space, in physical space instead. It was too focused on an arrangement of abstract flat shapes, and the car itself wasn't getting any treatment. I scratched that off the list and started again. What about destruction? Explosions? Yeah! I like damaged cars, I should smash up this BMW and create a cutout of a diorama to give it context. Maybe I can smash it into a pole or have it tumbling, have shattered glass captured in air, parts breaking loose, front tire coming off, it was going to be a 3D view of a captured moment on camera, something that attracts our attention pretty easily. The idea sounded cool, but I lost interest after a while.

Then I decided to approach it differently. What are some current problems I face as an individual? While I was thinking about this, I was playing around with the car opening and closing the chassis baseplate, I noticed on my desk my USB flash drive was missing its cap and thought, why don't I turn the car into an encasing? It's been done before in the novelty market so it shouldn't come off as unusual to anyone who sees it. The idea sounded great, and I started thinking of ways to make it possible. Sketches would have been nice, but this was such a simple problem I didn't bother. I thought of making the base plate open up as if one side was hinged revealing the male port, then I thought of making a sliding/retractable drive. That seemed possible if I cut an opening in the front end of the M3, but then making the movable parts function properly was going to be tricky. Then I thought about cutting the car into 2 sections where one end could serve as the cap and the other as the encasing of the drive. (You can steal that idea if you like. I got a better one anyway.)

That seemed to be the most practical. In fact, I was just about ready to start, until I noticed my house keys could fit inside the casting if I closed the base up like a container. I sprung up, a light bulb lit up. This was it! Another current problem I do indeed have - that's an even greater issue that a capless flash drive - is regarding the keys scratching my phone's screen! What if I could protect my phone using this body? It was possible. The labour involved is very little, and that was a huge plus in deciding on this. So I started playing with the keys for a bit. Luckily I only got 3 keys and they all fit in the casting. Immediately the idea of drilling a hole through the back windshield and the base plate for the key ring came to mind. It'd make a quick key holder, and I can still attach additional items along the outside, like car keys or charms. But before I did, I thought of taking that a step further by asking myself if it was possible to secure the keys to the car and keep them organized without the keyring? If there was no keyring, the whole car could easily come off as a basic mainline; a key holder disguised as a toy car.

The current state. The body's paint has been stripped because I need to sand down any corners or pointed edges to reduce the chance of it scratching the phone. I busted out the wire brush and polished up the surface with the dremel. I put a hole in the wind shield and the base. Unfortunately, the hole in the base has to be a specific spot and to my luck it intersects with the rear axle goes so that presented a huge problem later on. but putting that aside, the fitted hole made the keyring lack some freedom of travel, which was great in that the base plate could be reattached easily, but the problem of stiffness stood (hah pun), so I tried opening up a large gap. It looks hideous but the keyring could rotate around, which is useful when it's in your pocket: flexibility. 

Accommodations had to be made, with the back wheels. Turns out putty wasn't going to stop the brass tubing from rotating. Now I have an aesthetics issue.

Because they can rotate, now I got back wheels that have adjustable camber when I really don't need it.

Paint started coming off through working at the putty and having it in my pocket. Going to have to find a new solution, because I'm not feeling black lace wheels.

That yellow stuff is Tamiya Polyestor Putty. I'm making an extruded edge so pulling out the baseplate is possible. I had to grind down the cut-out riveted points so that it would come off more easily, but now it falls out without any effort. I had planned to make the front end stick via weak strip magnets. It'll require a bit of extra work, but it's doable and better than what I've done which I can't reverse. The arrangement of the edge I can clip my finger onto isn't great. It requires too much wasted strength pushing down which doesn't open up the door at all. I'm going to be redoing this with a new baseplate, but this time, I'm putting down putty at the very top to make a sort of front diffuser for the car.

I didn't test it beforehand, but I learned late that the head of the keys present a problem, and that is that they are too wide for the wheels and ended up pushing them outward.

What we end up with is a ridiculous amount of offsetting. I could have fixed this by turning the car into a widebody, but I clearly can't if the finish is going to be bare zamac.

Looks terrible, but that's the only way the keys can fit. If I knew about this earlier, I would have shaved down the wheels before installing the axles. It reminds me of my Delorean's folded-up wheels

 Here's a 4-panel illustration of how I access the keys.

 Except it's going to be done with my left hand since they door locks are all on the left hand side.

What it will ideally look like when it's complete. The base will easily reattach to the body, and the window is firmly secured to the body.

Work will be done on it tomorrow. I still need to prepare some decals and paint up whatever I'll need to paint up.