My 'artwork' for model ideas I probably won't have time to build

[BrianThomas]

'40 Ford "Tudor Coupe"

When I was an itty-bitty kid playing with my older brother's original issue black plastic AMT '40 Tudor, I always thought the front end was pretty, but the back was too turtle-like. Later, I built my own metallic purple paint-blistered, then orange glue bomb, and right before I junked it completely, I used the body to do a silhouette pencil drawing to cure its too-turtleness. And I ended up with the 1992 illustration below, which was too VW beetle-like.

But just a few days ago, I spotted the sectioned/channeled iconic 1st version Dave Cunningham Tudor, and that reminded me of a photo alteration I've long meant to do. The result is below, from this original photo, heavily sectioned with just a slight rearward lean of the windshield and a bit of channeling. Less turtle-like, without looking too much like the factory coupe, and without turning into the Lincoln Zephyr coupe version. Call it splitting the 3-way difference. I'd also blame the curves of the trunk & rear roof on the Matchbox Rolls Royce Phantom VI that I also used to play with.

I love this design. Very clean, and although it would be cut every which way, still looks almost factory. Great job.

[Russell C]

 I love this design. Very clean, and although it would be cut every which way, still looks almost factory. Great job.

Thanks for the kind words. Meanwhile ....

The Tijuana Green Hornet Taxi

Always laughed at that overall old Tom Daniel design, but never cared much for the front end treatment. If you swapped that part out for the Monogram Green Hornet, you could go with a somewhat de-tuned comic element with the Hornet rear wheels & tires, along with a bit of a chop to the roof and a green paint job. (image credits: Peter Hirschberg 3D Tijuana taxi rendering & Tom Geiger's image-reversed Green Hornet, mashed by me into what you see here)

Edited September 14, 2016 by Russell C
fixed busted photo link

[Russell C]

'51 Ford Bronco

Time to toss another virtual project on the pile. After seeing this MCM thread about Marmon-Harrington conversion kits (or the current lack thereof), I tried to see if I could find build threads elsewhere, and surfed across this 1:1 custom Ford "Suburban" page. A little shortening and moving areas here and there, and the somewhat quick & dirty photo alteration results are below. Start with a Monogram '55 panel van , find a '51 Race Motors Replicas (if they are still around) front end resin set if you want that, and go from there, but good luck on the 4x4 conversion until someone creates a resin conversion kit ....

[89AKurt]

That '51 Ford Bronco is very cool.   I recently got a resin conversion for the '51 - '52, to do my dad's '51, so that is still available.

I have a 2016 Honda Civic Coupe, which looks huge compared to the '87 Civic.  Wish they would resurrect the CRX theme.

[Russell C]

Phantom last of the fastback 'Cudas

Potentially an interesting project to undertake, but it would have to take a back seat to the 18 or so actual model projects I have on my shelves in one stage or another of construction or parts-gathering. I owe this idea to "Snake"'s #1 option for putting the '70 AAR appearance on a '69 Plymouth Barracuda, except the basic reverse concept:  putting the '69 fastback roof on a '70 AAR Barracuda. Not being a Mopar expert at all, there's likely errors of assumption on my part, but what I did is assume both years are the same wheelbase, so I lined up a '69 with a '70 and dropped the roof on. An immediate problem popped out to me, the '69 appears to have shorter doors, leaving a somewhat unsightly empty space between the back of the door and the rear fender arch, if you move the back door line forward to match the thin B pillar of the fastback roof. A way to counter that is to split the difference of not moving the '70 door line so far forward, while moving the B pillar of the fastback roof back. Of course, all of this moving around depends entirely on what the real proportions of the two models would be, as contrasted with the two '69 & '70 views I snagged off the internet, which aren't exactly photographed at the perfectly identical angle.

Edited January 18, 2020 by Russell C
typo

[Russell C]

Max Wedge '60 Cadillac

  (First, I should mention that I was able to fix all of the busted photo links in my prior posts going all the way back to the first one.)

Here's another virtual project that I'll likely never have the time or extra money to get to. The idea was inspired by the unaltered photo of the gray model at the bottom, which I saw either on eBay or in MCM somewhere, or maybe both if the MCM person won the auction and then showed the model in a MCM forum thread. Looks like the original builder just whacked the fins off and never painted the taillights. So, all I did with the upper photo was reverse the greenhouse / wheel openings / fins, and stuff in some bullet taillights. Just like several of my other virtual ideas, the prohibitive cost problems is how a Johan 4-door body or a resin 2-door body is not always a cheap purchase. The other challenges would be to make a factory-looking filler plate for what used to be the front grille area, and perhaps how to stuff a really slanted 6-cylinder under what used to be the trunk. Or a flat-8? The fun result of it could be how it would still be quite recognizable as a Cadillac, but one with some kind of deep set directional problems.

[iBorg]

I truly love the 'Cuda.....wonder what would happen with that being done to a new Challenger?

 

 

[Russell C]

Moon Mackser

I never cared much for the basically uninteresting back end of the old Monogram Beer Hauler show rod kit / more recent RC Cola Wagon version, and I never cared much for the hokey front end of the Revell Moon Mixer. If I combined what I like in both, that would be the result below. However, although parts piles for the are Mack stakebed are found fairly cheap, after watching enough Moon Mixer eBay listings go into triple digits prices, I might as well just relegate this quick 'n dirty photo alteration I did several years back (never got around to making it all one color) into this thread of projects that I'll never be able to get into. Other versions of the Revell Corvair-powered show rod are cheaper, but they don't have the Moon Mixer's particular cab's distinctive textured glass details, which would be essential for pulling off this visual pun mashup.

[Russell C]

Less frog-eyed Thames Panel dragster

Sacrilege to Thames Panel Purists, of course. Unlike some of my other 'redesign' ideas involving mostly unobtainium-priced kits (at least for my thin budget), this is just a single affordable kit. However, I lack the time to do such a project in the face of so many other projects I should get to first.

Same basic idea for the Anglia Gasser kit, although it could use a mildly chopped top and fatter back fenders ...

Edited October 11, 2023 by Russell C

[Rattlecan Dan]

Nice thread of imagination and creativity. Some amusing but thought provoking.

[Russell C]

Years back I saw this Tom Sehloff Packard/Airstream cast iron toy creation (the man made those kinds of things for a while), so I thought I'd see if I could come up with something similar in 1/24th scale. Greenlight Models puts out a reasonably affordable diecast 24th scale 16 foot Airstream Bambi trailer, and the Lindberg '31 Bugatti Royale kits still seem to be around in plentiful form … but at the rate I'm going, I think I'll never find the time to take this idea past my photo composite stage.