Long Over Due Update!

It's been far too long since I updated this little blog. So here goes.

What have I been up to?

Building! I've since built and sold 2 more packs.  As each one is made the process goes quicker and the final product gets better and better. I finally broke down and decided to make a mold of my pack in order to make them a little faster and as a bit of quality control. Not to mention stronger material. So I've molded them and then cast the pieces in resin. Here are some of the molds for you to look at. In case you're curious...

Here is the mold for the cyclotron with a roughly assembled pack next to it.

And here is part two of the cyclotron with the mold and the final piece.

Pre painted cast resin pieces

And here is the majority of the pack fitted together. Just making sure everything lines up right.

It's been such a time saver to cast these. What would normally take several days of wood carving to get the piece perfect now takes me an hour. Of course there is still priming and painting.  I am casting with black dye now to make the process even faster. But the pieces still need to be adjusted. Casting them in color reduces the amount of primer and paint build up which helps keep the pieces fitting together better.

I've also just completed work on a pack that is not claimed by anyone. My new goal is to make one every few weeks so this way buyers aren't waiting too long for them. And as practice for my skills.  Win win.

Here is the most recent addition to the family.

The stand is not painted yet. It's such a simple thing to do I figured I can leave that for the very last.

In addition to the proton packs, I've had this idea rattling around in my head for a while. I'm sure I've seen it somewhere. Where? I don't know. But I'm sure I have.  Throwing Bat pushpins! I've always been a huge Batman fan and who wouldn't want any one of his toys.  I figured one of the throwing bats from Batman Begins would be easiest to make. I grabbed the logo and printed out a very basic version of it. Then I simply transferred that to a thin sheet of plastic and, well, that's about it.  There is no "pin" in this yet as it's my first attempt. It's not perfect. But it's not horrible either. I think were I to cast them they'd be a bit easier to make and add pins to.  

For now I'll leave you with a 1 1/2 inch throwing Bat.

Primed

Painted

And then weathered a bit with some silver.

And that is all for now!

1966 Batmobile By Hot Wheels Customization

In my never ending quest to make Hot Wheels better...I've also decided to tackle the Batmobile from the 1966 series. Hot Wheels has released this a few times over the years. In 2007 (on the right) they produced one with blue tinted glass. And in 2013 (left) clear glass. So I worked on both of them.

 The interior of the two cars after being pulled apart is identical. They were both grey with a fair amount of detail. With the Batmobile though, everything was black and red. So it was just a matter of hilighting what I could.

The canopies we detailed some. The chrome that should go around the glass was added. And the red light on top inside it's chrome casing was details. I'm very pleased with how these came out.

Here are the interiors being worked on, adding red hilights as I said. Sitting next to them is the interior of a Delorean.

The finished product came out REALLY well. To say I'm happy is an understatement. All the red accents that were missing from the body are now on and help the car really look more accurate.

For whatever reason there was no red on the front or back, just the fins. I fixed that. And now it looks like one mean little car ready to fight some crime.

And here are some before and after comparison shots for you. Just to give you an idea of how much better it looks.  Hopefully the pictures do it justice. I might need to take more pictures of my next "before."

2013

 2007

Hot Wheels 1:64 Ghsotbusters Ecto-1 Customization

And I'm back! And finished.  This little car took much longer than it usually does because there was just so much to do to it. So many great little pieces molded onto the car that needed some extra love and attention.

We'll start right off with the interior.

The 4 proton packs...which will never be seen through the windows were touched up a bit. Some basic coloring to give the hint of what they are.  They're just far too small to pain the ribbon cable on.

The roof rack. The most fun, but also challenging.  At first I had planned on cutting out the space between the rungs of the ladder. But then I found out that there is extra plastic behind the rungs that help keep this in place and lock in the windows. So I left that part black. But fully detailed the rest and weathered it some.

This is just a test fit together. The blue lights on top were painted...blue. And the silver piece in the middle.  No white walls yet. And at this point there is no decal on the back. But over all it looks to be shaping up really well.

And here is the finished product.  A back view so you can see the detail of the tailights, rear roof rack and back door.

And here you can see a bit of the wide 1950's style whitewalls peeking out of the front fender.  This little care was a bit more challenging but a lot of fun to spruce up.  I think it came out much better than I anticipated and I'm very proud of the work.

On to the next!

Hot Wheels 1:64 Ghostbusters Ecto-1 Customization

I know what's going to happen first off.  I'm going to get yelled at by all the collectors out there for cutting open the card and removing the Ecto-1.  Then they'll get over that and really become irate when they see that *spoiler* I'd taken the whole car apart!

Well, breathe. It will be ok. I understand the feeling of panic though. These cars are getting harder and harder to find.  They were made in 2009 and I think that's the last time HW made an Ecto. I'm probably wrong.  I think they are coming out with one this year, but I have yet to see it. Hopefully they'll make more because I want to customize more.  For now, this is my first attempt.  Here she is still on the card:

And here is the car, set free from it's confines! It's a pretty detailed car. Just very one color when it comes to the roof rack and interior. 

You'll see here that the ladder on the side is also molded with plastic between each rung. Upon further inspection I think it will be easier to paint the negative space white than to try to carve it out.  We shall see.

Notice the missing "No Ghost" logo on the back door. I'm going to have to find a way to fix that. I'm confident in my painting skills, but not on something this small.  Why would HW leave off the rear logo!

Here we go. The good stuff. After separating the chassis from the body some more interesting things about this car start to make themselves known. It's far more detailed than I anticipated.  Good for you HWs. However why would you go through all this trouble and just paint everything black?

The first thing that really jumps out at me is that the chassis is silver. completely silver. I supposed this is because the bumpers, which were big chrome monstrosities in the 50's, are a part of it. Easier to make it all silver/chrome I suppose than to try to paint it 2 different colors.  I'll definitely be repainting the chassis a flat black after taping out the chrome bumpers.

Looking closer at the inside of the care, you'd never guess what was there.  Four tiny Proton packs. All lined up on the rack ready to go. Seriously, so much detail wasted.  This project is going to take a little longer than the Delorean because of all the detail that's molded into these pieces.  But it's a good thing. There is SO much to play with in this little car.

That's where we I am for now.  This week if I can manage I'll try to start work on this. Probably with the chassis and body first.  Those will be the easiest.  Headed into the holidays it feels like free time vanishes.

...more to come! 

Proton Pack 2.0 is in the Mail!

It has finally happened.  I finished. And to say I'm proud of this one is an understatement. It came out WAY beyond my expectations. It's much cleaner and more detailed than my original. After all, the original was for my own enjoyment and this one was for a friend. Gotta make it look good, no?  The correct ribbon cable for starters makes this stand out from mine. A better stand. Updated electrics.  It's just over all superior.  My first go, the switch isn't an on off switch. You have to hold it down in order for the pack to light up. This one is a true on off, SO much better.  So without any more rambling, here is what you're all looking for. The pictures!

To start. The stand. Mine was a quickly cobbled together stand made of wood and shot with some grey paint. This one is of plastic, much sturdier and black. (By request of the owner, but a smart choice)

Packs side by side! I love mine, don't get me wrong, but the one on the right is a beauty!
I tried to emulate the packs of GB1 so you can see right away that the wand is afixed a little differently. In the first movie they were on a more severe angle. In GBII the angle was increased to make grabbing them easier.

A nice side view with the "yellow lights" on the side of the powercell from Ray's pack. A lot of people thought these were actual lights, but it's just the casing being too thin and the light bleeding through.

Close up of some of the warning labels and aging of the cyclotron. 

And here is what you've all been waiting for. It's a live! Lit and glorious and pretty bright. Those lights'll hurt your eyes if you look directly into them. (taken with flash)

Without the fill flash there are so many more details picked up in this picture. I like to think that I succeeded in getting the aged/worn look of the pack correct.

Just another angle with the gun off to the side.

A few people have asked me for size comparison. So here it is next to my much smudged S3. Saying 1:7 scale doesn't really mean much until you see it next to something.

Lastly, a shot of the gun. 

And there you are folks! Finished. And as we speak it's flying (driving) down the road to it's new owner who I KNOW will give it a very good home.

Proton Pack 2.0 Finish line is in sight!

Been a while since my last update but I've been busy working away. This is the point where it takes a lot longer because I'm working on a much smaller scale. It's fairly easy to get the main parts created and fitting together, but come time to wire...it's a headache.  What follow are pictures from the past few weeks moving oh so close to the final product. At the time of writing this I'm actually only left with creating a stand for the pack.

My friend who this is for has requested a black one and I'm hoping I can improve on the hastily put together stand I made for the original one I made.

So here we have the bumper being created. This is always one of the harder pieces because before there are layers of primer and filler and paint...it's pretty fragile. Here you can see it's basic shape coming togther

Let there be light! The power cell is lit and glowing and looks amazing. Successful test indeed.

This is a quick test to see if the barrel of the gun will light up with the LED. It's basically like a huge fiber optic. I'm using a cell battery for it's unique ability to illuminate a single LED without the need of a resistor.  It works, trust me. The flash is just causing too much light to see the glow.

Successful test of the cyclotron lights!

This initial wiring had to be taken a part and redone as lighting LED's can be tricky if you're not paying attention. And I was clearly not paying attention during round one. When I tried to hook up the gun, it wouldn't light up. Remember, different color LED's do not play well with each other when on the same circuit. 

Lesson Learned

The Ion bar and it's mount. Just sitting around saying, yeah, I'm done. 

Yup...Hermione. Don't judge.  Some of the labels are being applied to the main body.  This has been requested to be Ray's pack from the original Ghostbusters.  There aren't too many differences. His HGA is straight up and down as opposed to Egon's which is at an angle. And you can see in this pic that the label is correct. The bolts will be painted on accordingly as well. 

The gun coming together. Adding a few little cosmetic details. I love that half the wires on this model are functional and the other half do nothing. I'm assuming the original prop was the same way.

It's officially all together! I use tape to clamp things together when drying. Rubber bands or actual clamps would damage the pieces. Tape is harmless but applies enough pressure.I believe in this pic the mount for the red and blue hoses on the left side is slowly drying.

HANDLES! There is so much wear and tear on these that when making them I tried to keep them a little rough. There is some red coming through from underneath to mimic the actual screen grabs and prop images that show them as such. It's a simple thing to do. Use a base primer of red and then just lightly sand off the final coat until you get some bleed through.

Shock mount...pre-paint. Ray's is actually bent in some scenes and normal in others. There is so much discrepancy between the hero packs and the foam stunt packs that I chose to make this normal. 

Almost done!You can get an idea of scale too in this pic. As this was taken, the ribbon cable was being heated up in order to make it more malleable so I can attach it. But this is a great shot of the almost done pack! All electronics work by a switch in the back. Along with the battery housing (bit of a tight squeeze, but what ever) And almost all detailing is done.

More to come...