Things to Waste my Time on

 A while ago I got a batch of nice fotos of some of my Gaslands cars as a birthday present. A lot of them are already pubkished on this blog. Here is some more Hot Wheels Custom Datsun 240z Hot Wheels '67 Oldsmobile 442 The second car I ever made for Gaslands. It's funny to look at my very first batch of models. I would do a lot of things differently now. The (Rigor Motor) engine that is just glued on top of the hood looks so weird, but I didn't have the time to cut a hole in the hood. Nor the patience. The rear tires are just wrong. The gun I kitbashed from so many tiny bits, for I didn't have any gun parts. But Iove how confident and efficient I was back then. Today I overthing everything. This i s why so m any projects are frozen in WIP status. I have some concept in mind and the get lost in the details. Scale, Color scheme, purpose, somehow realistic details like exhaust pipes and such. I can get lost for weeks deciding on wheels. I have so many now. Back then it wa...

  A while ago I got a batch of nice fotos of some of my Gaslands cars as a birthday present. A lot of them are already pubkished on this blog. Here is some more Matchbox 4*4 Chevy Van It carries a Hot Wheels Tanknator turret Actually the first car I converted for Gaslans ever Actually not a Chevy at all Hot Wheels 8 Crate is modelled after a Ford Ranch/Parklane Wagon

 And how this affects building miniatures for Gaslands. 1/64. That's a scale most people out there who like toy cars are familiar with. The most common brands for relatively cheap and nice to play with diecast toy cars may be Mattel's Hot Wheels and Matchbox. Recently Majorette and Maisto have joined the game. Majorette slightly upmarket, Maisto depending on product line. They have some super cheap cars in 1/64 and some more like Hot Wheels premium range. And they normaly are considered as 1/64 scale. 1/64ish probably, more or less... At least when growing up Hot Wheels and Matchbox for us were synonyms for 1/64. So what is a scale, what does 1/64 mean anyways? Scale ratio is a tool, which helps to make models or maps or projection of real things in a different size. It states how the size of the model is relative to size of the original. 1/64 simply means: 1 cm in my model represents 64 cm in my original. That means if a Hot Wheels model of a car is about 7 cm long, the origin...

  The grille is taken from a '32 Ford I think The gatling seen in this picture broke of in the process of making these shoots.

  So I got myself a rotating display. Now I need a better camera. And a tripod maybe. The first car is a Hot Wheels '55 Bel Air Gasser . The second a Corgi Junior Land Rover Tow Truck . The Chevy lost part of its roof and got a truck bed from a HW '40 Ford  . The gun is scrap built from some electronic parts. The Landrover got a new roof from cardboard and a new chassis from a HW Land Rover Defender . The rest of the pieces came from my bits box.

 Finally after some hiatus I found the time to start painting cars again. Chevy Bel Air pickup Donator: Hot Wheels Bel Air Gasser Land Rover Wrecker Donator car: Corgi Junior Land Rover Tow Truck 

 More stuff from my halloween special : WIP Quick Kitbash Two cheap deco pieces cut into pieces and combined in a new way. To show what kitbashing is Made from the same kind of cheap halloween toy as the zombie in part 1. Added some random pieces mainly from my bits box. The mouth piece is made from a soft foam sheet Black primer and some metallic acryl paint dry brushing. Added the same brown wahs I used for the zombie Brown wash on the spider rat and some red pigment on the steam punk cyborg.

 Halloween is coming. I alsways had a soft spot for everything morbid, spooky, goth, and let's face it, gory. So why not have some good old halloween  fun. Luckily my job allows me to do projects like this. Some finished and WIP objects Working with adolescents is great. First of all they visit our youth center voluntarily. Second they are old enough, so you can go full gory and weird. I did a few things as examples of what is possible by using certain techniques. The basic masks came as a cheap 1€ halloween prop. The Zombie: First I cut of the nose and sealed the holes with some foam sheet Next I used toilet paper and glue to create a skin pattern. Just torn pieces of paper and PVA glue applied with a big brush For Rhinoplasty I used some paper maché and a piece of plastic that I had cut off from the mask's nose earlier. Then I decides to create some lips. The thicker pieces of paper maché took ages to dry.  I used some thread to sew the mouth shut. Had to use a drill fo...

So a family member married this weekend. She asked for some cash as a wedding present. Money to invest in a new VW bus camper. So we decided as the more creative branch of the family: let's at least present the present in a unique way.  The theme was: Built a diorama with a camper van and maybe a bit of references to marriage. I built a camper van and a base to stand on. My partner's daugther did some origami on the Euro bills the family collected. Here is what I built: The Terrain Piece: I started with coating a placemat with some Art Podge and paint to seal it. I coated the rock pieces I tokk from some old Playmobil sets with paper mache. The road is a piece of anti slippery mat. And then I made a texture paste from Glue and various grains of sand and rubble with paint. I pressed some monster truck tires into the soft paste.. Washes, drybrushing on rocks and road. A bit of static grass flocking on the greenery, some paint and grounded chalk pigments on the landscape, and it w...