Super!

I just found this Hot Wheels Super Van the other day - and is it ever a sharp model!  Can't say that I care all that much with the commercialization of the piece, but, it looks nice with the real riders.
 

Backgrounds Made Easy

People ask me all the time how I take shots like the one above. They say, "It's Photoshopped, right?" But they're not Photoshopped. That's something that can be done, but my method is a whole lot easier and much more effective. You have to admit that the picture above sure looks smooth. That's because it's only one image, not several different parts of the image Photoshopped and digitally manipulated to be one. This post will show, in full detail, how I achieve my end results and each step I have to follow to get there. Read on and don't hesitate to leave a comment if there's anything I've left unclear or not fully explained.

First, my method works best when I find a picture with an obvious horizon line I can use; and the picture dimensions must be landscape instead of portrait. Although you can crop a portrait image down to where it resembles the landscape dimensions above, one that is already shaped where it's wider than it is tall works best. In the above image, of a border fence separating Arizona and Mexico, you'll notice that approximately two-thirds of the way down from the top of the photo, there is an imaginary line you can see where there is just dirt road. This will be my horizon line. More on that later.

After I have chosen the picture I'm going to use, I'll open it up in my favorite photo editing software, which is Adobe Photo Deluxe 2.0. This program came out in 1997, so you can see you don't have to have the latest version of Photoshop to be able to achieve similar results as mine. The key to everything is that I'm going to edit my photo so that it can be printed out on a sheet of paper that is legal sized, i.e. 8.5 x 11 inches. After my chosen photo is loaded in the photo-editing software, I'll change the dimensions so that the width of the image is exactly 8.5 inches. Your printer might cut off a little on both edges, but that's all right. You'll still have enough of the image for it to work properly. At this point, it doesn't matter what height your picture is because we'll be taking care of that shortly. In the above image you can see what I did next. I decided that this particular image needed more sky area above the top of the fence. So, I simply made the working area larger, without making the image itself larger. I randomly made it 8 inches tall. You can see the original image now centered in the working area. The next image will show you how to make your sky "taller."

To create more sky with which to work with, and I felt the image I was going for would work better with more sky above the fence, I duplicated part of the sky toward the top. Make sure you don't include any of the fence or other solid objects because you are going to stretch this duplicated area up to the top of the working area. In the above image, you can see the duplicated area of the sky I created and an arrow is pointing at the handle I'm going to grab and drag to the top of the blank working area. By having created this duplicate area of the sky right over identical sky below in the original picture, I now have a piece of sky that is not connected to anything else and has it's own properties. I will drag the handle so that it comes to the exact edge of my working area at the top. When finished, it will resemble the picture below.

Here is the extra sky area I duplicated and pulled up so that it covered all the blank area I had created above the original image. By duplicating an exact copy of the sky right over where the sky was in the original image below it, when I drag the upper edge, it doesn't move the lower edge from where it is found in the orignal image underneath the duplicate. In reality, all I'm doing is just stretching part of the sky so that it takes up more space above the fence. When done properly, and since it's on top of the original image below, what's below the duplicate piece won't show. And the fact that the new piece is just sky won't cause anything to look stretched - it's just non-descript blue anyway.

Now that I've got my top edge where I want it to be, I'll work on the bottom edge. It's time to create a new working area, so I'll extend it so that when I'm finished with it, it will be exactly 14 inches tall. Now, in my program, I have to first make it much longer than I'll need - anything that will trim down to 14 inches, because it always adds an even amount of new blank area above and below my image. In this case, I added 26 inches, trimmed all the white blank area above my sky, and then trimmed the bottom edge until it was exactly 14 inches tall. You can see an arrow pointing to the new bottom of my working area and by looking at the ruler on the left, you can see it is exactly 14 inches. Now for the part that makes my method most effective. I feel I have created this method, because I have not seen it done like this anywhere else. As far as I know, this might be the first time my method was ever employed. If so, now you'll be able to use it as well and get great results like I have been getting.

Like I did when I created some additional sky area at the top of the image to stretch up, I'll duplicate some of the dirt road over itself to pull down. You can see what little amount I had to work with when I did so. If you look close at the original image, you'll see a largish rock on the extreme left, just below the bottom edge of the fence, but immediately above the area I chose to duplicate. By making sure I didn't duplicate any of the area which had any objects that could potentially end up being stretched, this ensured that I would have plenty of plain dirt road area to work with and bring down to the bottom of my working area. An arrow points to the handle I dragged to get the duplicate dirt road area to stretch down to the bottom of the blank white area. Below was what my results looked like when finished dragging the duplicate dirt road piece. Since it was created right over the image below, like the sky was above, I could drag the bottom edge of the duplicate piece without changing the top edge's location in the original image. This is critical so that everything matches up when finished.

This is what my picture looked like when I had dragged the duplicated dirt road piece's bottom edge to the bottom edge of my blank white working area. The arrow points to show that it has been placed at the exact bottom which makes the image now equal 14 inches exactly in height. Once I got it to this state, I saved it as a jpeg and then printed it out on legal sized 8.5 x 11 inch printer paper. You can save it as a bitmap or tiff or whatever you prefer, that part doesn't really matter. All you need is something that can be printed. Once it is printed out, it should like this below:

This is what my finalised background image looked like after it has been printed - it is the actual version of the edit work I did and used myself. You might be able to discern that the dirt road area which was duplicated and stretched downwardly looks warped out of it's correct dimensions. And, you would be right. Here's how I get around that so that the resulting image I ended up with "looks" normal from top to bottom for photographing:

Here you can see the image I created and printed out and placed into position on my homemade photo stand that is a permanent fixture upstairs in my house. The secret to getting the lower dirt road area to resemble it's correct original dimensions is that I'll bend the image and hold it in place with what I chose as my horizon line positioned at the bend area. By placing my camera almost "head on" to the front edge of my image and photographing it at such a low angle, (as low as I can get), this will make the stretched-out dirt road appear, to the human eye, like it originally looked. It's a trick of angles, but your eye will just see it looking normal again. That's how I get my diecast vehicles to actually "be" in my pictures and blend so well. You can place your car closer to the camera or farther back from the camera, depending on how in or out of focus you want your background to be. Now, a little more information on my photo stand and how I set up my images for lighting them and then photographing them:

My photo stand is sitting directly below two 4-foot-long fluorescent bulbs. They make a good, even light source, but any kind of light will ultimately work just as well. You just have to set your camera for the lighting type you use. Now, to describe what the numbered parts of my setup are:
1. My permanent photo stand, but if you have a two-foot square area on your table, this will work just as well. It doesn't have to be permanent.
2. A dark object, in this case a clipboard, to block the light from above. Heavy cardboard will work, too.
3. Empty instant tea jars to hold the object I use to block the light from above. These have the advantage to being extra tall and clear so that they don't block light from the sides.
4. A prop to hold the back of my image up straight. It can be anything. In this case, it was a small zoom lens!
5. My subject, which can be a diecast vehicle, a camera or an action figure - whatever I'm shooting and will fit in the width of my printed image.
6. The image I created above.
7. My camera. You can use a film camera or a digital camera. Once you've used your photo stand enough, you'll figure out what the best settings will be for each type of subject.
8. A sturdy tripod so that your camera can remain totally rigid for the long exposures my photo stand requires.
Once everything is in place like you see pictured, I'll set my camera to go off with the self timer and hold two sheets of legal-sized printer paper in my hands and reflect the light from above all over my diecast vehicle or whatever my subject is. By waving the papers left and right and up and down, I can get a good, overall even lighting on my subjects. Most exposures take in the 20 to 30 second range, so you'll have plenty of time to illuminate your subject all over and evenly. It really works well, as you can see in the very topmost image of this post. Here is the image I took using the background I created above:

This is my custom-painted Arizona Border Patrol car looking right at home at a border fence between Arizona and Mexico. And it looks like it's actually there, because, in a way, it is in the picture. I ended up only having to take one single picture because I know what my settings are generally going to be. It turned out like this and then I cropped it down to whatever size I wanted it to be, which in this case was so I could have a regular 4x6 inch picture made of it at the CVS Pharmacy photo booth. Once you get this technique mastered, you will be able to take images like these below, which all employ this same method of creating your prepared/stretched image, setting up your photo stand and taking the picture:

I call this one Mickey's Diner, 1955, because I converted it to black and white to make it look old.

Here's one of a jeep making it's way through the desert. The lower desert is actually a separate photo placed in front of the background image. I simply rolled it over a t-shirt to make it look round like a sand dune.

Like the above shot, I employed two different images for this shot as well. The grass was printed out and rolled around a t-shirt to make it look sloped toward the lake picture in the background. So, if you follow this method, there's no reason why you can't achieve similar results with your diecast vehicles. And it's fun, too!

Customs I've Made

To me, there's a certain satisfaction to be gained when you can customize one of your favorite diecast pieces and paint it in a color of your own choosing. That way, it makes it special, and in a sense, a limited piece. Depending on the amount of detail you want to add, you can make them look quite eye-catching! Now, my skills at customizing are not even close to the level I've seen being turned out by some people out there, but I still find it something I enjoy doing. Above is a Summer Toyota Celica LB Turbo GR.5. I had a beat up old one that I acquired long ago and attempted to make it look nice again. Below, you can see my less than stellar attempt. But it was one of the first ones I ever repainted:

Recently, I dug it out and redid it again. Below you can see a transitional state it took before I applied the final coat of paint to it. There was a point that I almost left it with the chrome look because it looked kind of nice:

But, I went on and finished it later and it turned out like this:

Some of the other castings I have customized is one of my favorite Hot Wheels vehicle called a Letter Getter. It is basically a big panel truck with lots of room for the sponsor's logo on the sides. This makes it a nice choice to customize as you can put whatever writing on it that you want. I chose "Kodak" for this one because I like to take pictures and use a lot of Kodak film:

I chose "FedEx" for the side of this one simply because you see them everywhere:

Here's an old piece I had that was all but ready for the trash. I decided to bring it back to life and fixed it up. Here is the shiny, new truck it became:

One of my other early attempts at repaining a toy car was this Hot Wheels Gun Slinger. Originally, it was Army green and had a gun. Well, I had long since lost the gun, so I repainted it black. But, I did keep the Army theme by applying a star decal to the hood:

Another bodystyle I like is station wagons. My parents had one when I was little and ever since then, I've loved them. I've had three real ones of my own since becoming an adult! So, anytime one is released in 1:64 scale, you can bet I try to get one. Here is a Hot Wheels 8 Crate, based on a 1955 Ford station wagon that I started to customize. When it's finished, it will be two-tone, white over red. But for now, here's what it looks like:

Other station wagons I've customized is one put out by Matchbox, an Audi RS6 Avant:

And what some might consider to be a station wagon, a Volkswagen T2 minibus, also by Matchbox:

Matchbox also makes a Dodge Magnum station wagon model, in two varieties. Here is one of them that I am going to stripe and make into an Illinois State Police car:

Here's another Police vehicle I made, only it started out as a Hot Wheels Highway Patrol car and became an Arizona Border Patrol car:

Here is a Maisto Chevrolet Camaro Concept that I painted anodized blue over a chrome base. It is one of the first cars I ever drilled out the rivets and took it apart the right way:

A Hot Wheels '65 Mustang Fastback that I painted gloss black and used the old basic wheels they used to use:

I started customizing this Zee Volkswagen Beetle to look like Herbie, The Love Bug. All it needs are the racing strips and numbers to be finished:

Here's an old Lindberg Line Hertz Truck that I painted black long ago. It's essentially a 1:64 scale model car, so it was easy to take back apart and paint:

My most recent custom is a Hot Wheels Cadillac Seville. They only made it for a couple years and in a couple different paint schemes. For one release, they used the big, rubber tires known as Real Riders. I decided this one needed to be a different color, I had stripped it down to bare metal waiting to make up my mind what color that would be. The other day I decided what I wanted, so I finished painting it and putting it back together. This is how it turned out:

So, customizing your own cars can be quite fun. It can take as little or as much time and effort as you wish to put out and at any level of effort, you can come up with some nice results. As I said, I'm not really very good at it, but I think they turn out to be some great looking customs that I'm proud to display!

M2 Machines Auto-Thentics Releases

Castline, Inc. seems to have started this line around January of 2008 and already they're making their mark in the world of diecast. I've read that each car will be released in limited numbers of around 4000 to 5000 pieces for each model/color. That means, when you see them, you'd better get them before they're gone! This, then, is the release order for the M2 Machines Auto-Thentics line so far. I will try to keep it updated as new ones are released. The cars in each series each have a different paint scheme and/or wheel combination. Updated February 3rd, 2011.

Release 1A:
1954 Chevrolet Bel Air
1955 Pontiac Star Chief
1953 Oldsmobile 98
1951 Ford Crestliner
1957 Ford Fairlane
1954 Mercury Sun Valley

Release 1B:
1954 Chevrolet Bel Air
1955 Pontiac Star Chief
1953 Oldsmobile 98
1951 Ford Crestliner
1957 Ford Fairlane
1954 Mercury Sun Valley

Release 2A:
1954 Chevrolet Bel Air
1955 Pontiac Star Chief
1953 Oldsmobile 98
1951 Ford Crestliner
1957 Ford Fairlane
1954 Mercury Sun Valley

1955 Pontiac Star Chief - Release 2A

Release 2B:
1954 Chevrolet Bel Air
1955 Pontiac Star Chief
1953 Oldsmobile 98
1951 Ford Crestliner
1957 Ford Fairlane
1954 Mercury Sun Valley

Release 3A:
1955 DeSoto Fireflite
1957 DeSoto Adventurer
1954 Dodge Coronet
1955 Dodge Royal Lancer
1953 Ford Crestline Victoria
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air

Release 3B:
1955 DeSoto Fireflite
1957 DeSoto Adventurer
1954 Dodge Coronet
1955 Dodge Royal Lancer
1953 Ford Crestline Victoria
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air

1953 Ford Crestline Victoria - Release 3B

Release 4A:
1955 DeSoto Fireflite
1955 Dodge Royal Lancer
1954 Chevrolet Bel Air
1954 Mercury Sun Valley
1957 Ford Fairlane
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air

1955 DeSoto Fireflite - Release 4A

1954 Chevrolet Bel Air - Release 4A

Release 4B:
1955 DeSoto Fireflite
1955 Dodge Royal Lancer
1954 Chevrolet Bel Air
1954 Mercury Sun Valley
1957 Ford Fairlane
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air

Release 5A:
1950 Oldsmobile 88
1949 Mercury
1959 Cadillac Series 62
1958 Plymouth Fury
1957 DeSoto Fireflite
1954 Dodge Coronet

Release 5B:
1950 Oldsmobile 88
1949 Mercury
1959 Cadillac Series 62
1958 Plymouth Belvedere
1957 DeSoto Fireflite
1954 Dodge Coronet

Release 6:
1959 Cadillac Series 62
1949 Mercury
1955 Pontiac Star Chief
1959 Cadillac Series 62
1949 Mercury
1955 Pontiac Star Chief

1955 Pontiac Star Chief - Release 6

1959 Cadillac Series 62 - Release 6

1949 Mercury - Release 6

Release 7:
1958 Plymouth Belvedere
1953 Ford Crestline Victoria
1954 Dodge Royal
1958 Plymouth Belvedere
1953 Ford Crestline Victoria
1954 Dodge Royal

1958 Plymouth Belvedere - Release 7

Release 8:
1949 Mercury
1955 DeSoto Fireflite
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air
1949 Mercury
1955 DeSoto Fireflite
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air

Release 9:
1954 Dodge Royal
1954 Dodge Royal
1955 Dodge Royal Lancer
1955 DeSoto Fireflite
1957 DeSoto Adventurer
1957 Chrysler 300C

1955 Dodge Royal Lancer - Release 9

Release 10 (Features cars pinstriped by Tom Kelly):
1950 Oldsmobile 88
1955 Dodge Royal Lancer
1951 Ford Cresliner
1957 Chevrolet Bel Air
1953 Ford Crestline Victoria
1957 DeSoto Adventurer

1957 DeSoto Adventurer - Release 10

I have several of these models, so as I get them photographed, I'll be sure to post more images so you can get an idea what these highly detailed models look like. Please feel free to let me know what you think of them.

Black Is Black

Just a bunch of black vehicles to match the mood I've been in lately.

Hot Wheels 1966 Batmobile

Suntoys Lincoln Navigator

Hot Wheels BMW 323

M2 Machines 1953 Ford Crestline Victoria

Maisto Dodge Ram Quad Cab

Hot Wheels 1933 Ford

Hot Wheels 1962 Chevy Bubbletop

Hot Wheels 1962 Chevy Bubbletop
(It's actually the negative image of a white one.)

Matchbox 2006 Ford Transit Van

Summer Porsche 917

Maisto 1934 Ford Hot Rod

Maisto 1997 Porsche 911 Carrera

Matchbox Sport SUV Police

Hot Wheels Ford Thunderbolt

Hot Wheels Ferrari F430 Spider
(It's actually the negative image of a white one.)

Maisto 2001 Chevrolet Suburban