BigEdsGarage

I started this for a club contest but never finished it. Its back on the bench now though, and I am feeling ambitious. I picked up a nicely cast resin body from the NNL East show several years back. I have no idea who made it or what the company name was, but I think it was based of an old Johan kit. It fits perfectly over the chassis from one of the Looney Tunes Bugs Bunny Rambler toy that was out a while ago. It will have a stock interior with exception of the wheel tubs and I'll scratch a cage and package tray for it. The hood will open forward like a Vette's and I am tempted to graft in a Ford style teardrop scoop. The motor will be a cammer Ford that will most likely have some sort of scratch built modern style fuel injection or perhaps turbo'd. I've already made a firewall and radiator support and a Mustang GT donated the rad and electric fans. Pegasus rotors fit inside the wheels nicely. It won't be super detailed since the chassis is a one piece unit but this should be a fun project of a car you don't see too frequently. I'm envisioning black paint with a multi-toned red interior and red motor, with a bunch of satin silver/brushed aluminum detailing inside and under hood.

Great looking build. The choice of colors works well together.

Looks very nice so far. As others already noted, great job de-chroming everything and making the motor far more realistic looking using the paint.

It's refreshing to see a build such as this. Definitely something different from the majority of Challenger builds. Very Cool! BTW, just curious what kit that slant 6 is from?

Very cool! I have a couple of those kits and have been debating if I want to build drag cars out of them or do something different. For some reason the more "dated" all that body work begins to look, the more I want to build one that way. This will be a fun one to watch. How about grafting in a Vette interior too?

Very cool Derrick! Man that motor looks great. This is an interesting build for me to watch. Years ago I did a quick rendering for someone who was going to build an XLR based chassis car so I'll be watching the progress on this for sure. For this design I recall lengthening the wheel base and extending both the rear section of the front fender and the forward section of the quarters. I don't think you'll need to do any of that with the body you're using though.

Incredible and inspiring. Truly a work of scale art.

Those are cool! I've seen a bunch of ElCamino knock offs but these are really neat. I like what you did with the wheels. Most of the kit factory rally wheels have a trim ring that is ridiculously too large. Can't wait to see the progress on these. Maybe for the 70 you can use the 442 stripes down the sides and mimic an SX model Cutlass on the OldsCamino.

I was in a similar situation and after many years of being away from it I have started to enjoy the hobby again. I think you are going to find you will probably enjoy it more now that you are older. The truck looks very cool so far. Great job on all the work done so far. Is that the Lindberg kit suspension?

This is awesome! Great detail and execution of the original concept artwork (which is also very cool itself). I love all the scratch built parts, they really add life to the build. Like the Beach Boys sang..."If she had a set of wings man you know she could fly"

Great tip on the skewers and Blu Tac. Sure beats using tweezers and hoping you get all the surface area painted.

I agree, this is a refreshing change and certainly something you don't see built that often. Very cool! Is that a color shifting paint, and what brand did you use?

Just finished the paint on this one the other week. A simple slammed AMT 69 Riv, Pegasus wheels, it's still in the works. Interior will be some sort of cream/tan color, I need to look at some military colors before deciding. The motor will be a Buick nailhead with custom made throttle body fuel injection (modified dominator with scratched fuel rails) and painted a dark metallic red to contrast with the body. My intention was to make a custom intake cover for the whole setup. Firewall is smoothed and inner fenders have been modified and flared, all painted body color. I might try to make a tube grille for it and throw some headlights behind it. Paint is HOK Kandy Tangerine over a 3 color fade of silver, gold and kandy tangerine base (basically an orange metallic). I blended the base colors by widening the spray pattern and shooting a bit further away, I then dusted a coat of kandy with silver micro flake mixed in to add some sparkle under the kandy. The following top coats were done with the tangerine and apple red, mixing the two together and fading the red on the lower half of the body and down the center of the hood, roof and trunk. Unfortunately it came out more subtle than I was hoping for and looks all one color in the pics. I'll try to get some outdoor pics when completed.

Hopefully the 65 is a better piece than the 67 Plymouth wagon of theirs I purchased.

I have several projects those would be great for. If you scaled them to be close to a 28x10.5x15 I think they would sell big time! Tons of applications out there these would look right on. Two other tires that would be easier to replicate are the M/T Streets or Hoosier Quick Time Pros...those only have a couple of straight grooves for the tread, no patterns.

Beautiful job! Interior and door detail look fantastic. Great choice of color for this kit as well.

Neat build. Should be sharp when it's done. The bumper trick looks nice and smooth. What kit was the intake manifold from? I wouldn't mind finding one of those for a project I am working on. One thing I noticed is that intake resembles the early style Edelbrock Torker manifold. They actually positioned the carb diagonally so the front bowl pointed towards the passenger side. It was a pretty unique feature for those intakes and you don't see too many around any more. Ya might want to reposition the carb for accuracy, though I guess it doesn't matter much if it gets covered up with the air cleaner.

Looks great so far. I'll be watching this build. Can't wait to see more!

Great job on the tutorial Harry! What was shown here in a few posts could have easily taken someone weeks or months of searching for and applying other tutorials to their work. I would also suggest that anyone starting out learn what the layer opacity adjustment can do. If you add a highlight that seems to "white" or too "bright" drop the opacity and see how it looks. Learning about layer opacity, hue and saturation controls was very useful to me as I started doing more work in PS. Again, great job on this and thanks for taking the time and posting this for everyone.

Very cool build! Wheels, paint and stance all look great. The lenses do a lot for those kits. I have the 61 and 62 Buick wagon kits and have been looking for the Olds' to add to the collection.

Great work Harry! Your technique for lighting and reflection is fantastic. It is something I have been trying to learn recently myself and apply to my artwork.

Thanks for the compliments guys! I think anyone with a good eye and a little artistic talent can learn PS. I started fooling around with it, found a few tutorials online, adapted them to what I was trying to do, and basically each piece of work continues to get better as I try new things. As Harry mentioned, some of the tutorials aren't the best, but they will at least expose you to what other people do and perhaps expose what tools or tricks can be utilized to accomplish the desired result. All I can say to anyone learning should strongly focus on layers and how they work. It's all trial and error, but using layers you don't mess up the work you have already done. Harry, I would like to use Illustrator to do larger stuff like banners, posters, etc. I have done some work for printing and the guys at the shop are always looking for vector art. Personally I really like PS, but as you mentioned, file sizes can be huge.

Great looking build. Nice job on the paint too.

Thumbs up on this one! Did you make the decals or is someone offering them?

Great looking build. I think the color looks great on it!