Chopped from Mazda's Kabura concept (below) which debuted January 2006. This RX3 Sportback would be Mazda's entry-level sports car with a smaller version of the RX8's Wankel Rotary engine.
C H O P — The Kabura was a very cool little Mazda sport coupe that made the rounds of the car shows in 2006. It was a back-to-basics small sports coupe, sort of like a Miata fastback. I thought that with a bit of 'productionizing' and restyling it could become a modern day RX3, the Wankel Rotary powered entry level Mazda from the 1970s. It could be the 'little brother' to the RX8 sports car, perhaps selling in the upper teens/low twenties. I enlarged the windows, adding more glass including a vertical pane of glass in the rear hatch a la Honda CRX. I also made some very cool polished aluminum trim pieces on the rocker panel and the rear diffuser valance panel, emphasizing the wheelhouse bulges—as if they needed any more emphasis!
This is another early chop of mine, before I started completely changing the shape and design of the cars in the original photos and before I created new backgrounds for them. Below is the original press release photo I started with. I also worked at a much smaller size then, as many internet forums at the time had a limit of 600-800 pixels in width for images. Even though I had worked in Photoshop for 12-13 years by 2006, I hadn't used it for creating art so much as color-correcting and resizing art for my books. Creating fake cars was one way I taught myself a gazillion more uses of the software. When I look back at these early pieces, I see how crude they were in many ways, but I can also see the spark of creativity that really jolted me to my core when I realized how powerful a tool Photoshop really was, and how much I was going to be able to do with it. I smile at these early pieces for that very reason.
One of artandcolour's regular readers, dear Tampa Granny, has posted that she and hubby Gramps have a hot little Miata convertible. This could be her 'winter car' or when she wanted a hardtop roof over her head! : )
Original Kabura concept from 2006.
CASEY, IF I HAD THIS CAR,I WOULD HEAD NORTH,PICK YOU UP AND GO CRUISING.LOL, I ALSO WOULD WANT THIS RED COLOR JUST SO EVERYONE WOULD SEE US COMING DOWN THE HIGHWAY. GRAMPS HAS AN OLD TIME HORN THAT YOU SQUEEZE A BULB TO MAKE THE HORN SOUND BEEP, BEEP.I MIGHT JUST FLY MARE AND ANNIE AND PHANTOM IN. THEY CAN RIDE IN BACK. WE CAN ALL ACT LIKE KIDS FOR A DAY. WHY NOT. YOU ONLY LIVE ONCE. I'LL PUT THIS CAR ON MY WISH LIST.
ReplyDeleteGRANNY
I really like the chop u did much better than the original!! :)
ReplyDeleteI am hoping your computer will decide to take a BIG breath and continue life at least for a while..kind of like having oxygen gone when we can't be online :)
Loved the typewriter...I can't imagine being able to keep all the things you have...we have moved a lot and after while, you learn to cherish the memories and not so much the actual item... I have even taken photos of things that I thought I should get rid of but still wanted to be able to "see"...I must say that your writings are making me "homesick" for some of my items though...things I have tucked away in storage..hmmm, I wonder how this will work out as we are headed to clean out our storage as soon as the weather will allow us to be outside and working without passing out!
I'll let you know what I find when we get around to it...should be interesting...altho I don't have tons left.
Try to stay cool...has been a HOT one here with the temp and the humidity as well.
mare
i bet we would have fun on a road trip!
ReplyDeleteit hasn't been easy keeping everything I have. And I've even had to have a tag sale (garage sale out west?) when I sold our house and moved here. I sold a lot of the big furniture, dining room table with 16 chairs, lots of end tables, couches, beds, upholsered chairs, recliners... I kept the oldest pieces and the ones my father had restored, or pieces that meant the most to me, personal things that belonged to people in my family going back 200 years. I'd rather have that old typewriter than a stereo system or a flat screen TV. I don't have much 'new' stuff like that. What I have mostly is the 'clutter' stuff as my mother used to call it. Even then I've actually sacrificed a lot of opportunities because I need to keep everything I have right now together. It's the choices we make that determine our lives and I've made mine now.
Granny, if you decide to do the roadtrip, I'll fly myself in ! It would be a blast !!
ReplyDeletePHANTOM, IT WOULD INDEED.IF I COULD GET AROUND BETTER I'D DO SO MUCH MORE. GRAMPS AND I WENT NORTH MANY YEARS. MY AUNT AND UNCLE WERE LIKE 2ND PARENTS TO ME. WHEN HE GOT SO BAD[HEALTH WISE] GRAMPS MADE 9 TRIPS TO N.Y.. HE DIED AND AUNTIE BECAME SENILE. IT JUST PUSHED HER OVER THE EDGE. SHE HAD A HEART ATTACK. SHE ENDED UP IN A NURSING HOME. DOCTORS ORDERS. SO HER BROTHER[MY OTHER UNCLE OLD AND FEEBLE] BEING IN CHARGE OF THINGS, SOLD HER HOUSE TO US SO WE WOULD HAVE A PLACE TO STAY AND BE ABLE TO GO TO THE NURSING HOME EVERYDAY AND WATCH OUT OVER HER WHICH I DID FOR MONTHS. SHE PASSED THAT YEAR AND WE KEPT THE HOME FOR A FEW YEARS UNTIL IT JUST GOT TO BE TO MUCH GOING BACK AND FOURTH. IF I COULD DO THAT ROAD TRIP AND ACT LIKE 16 AGAIN BELIEVE ME I WOULD DO IT IN A MINUTE. MAYBE I COULD GET CASEY TO CHOP MY LAZY BOY CHAIR WITH A MOTOR ON THE BACK AND ADD SOME WHEELS.I'VE GOT THE OLD HORN AND SOME RAIN GEAR. SOUND LIKE FUN. ONLY IN MY DREAMWORLD PHANTOM.ONLY IN MY DREAMWORLD.
ReplyDeleteGRANNY
Where would I put the airbags, lol? We want you to be safe, Granny!
ReplyDeleteGranny, your PRECIOUS !
ReplyDeleteCASEY, IF YOU SAW ME YOU'D REALIZE THAT I DON'T NEED AIRBAGS. LAUGHING OUT LOUD.SIT IN A CHAIR MOST OF THE TIME ADDS #S BECAUSE OF LIMITED EXXCERIZE. FEET WON'T ALLOW LONG WALKS ANYMORE. DIABETES, HEART ETC.THE NUMBNESSIS TRAVELING UP THE LEGS. OH JOY. THERE'RE OTHERS WORSE OFF THAN ME. I DON'T LOOK AT HE HURTS I DO LOOK AT WHAT GOD HAS GIVE US.
ReplyDeleteTIME TO FEED JOEY. HE'S ASKED TWICE NOW HE MEANS BUSINESS. YOU HAVE TO LOVE DOGS. SPOILED BRAT.
GRANNY