Thursday, August 12, 2010

And Now for Something Completely Different!

Chopping photographs of my scale model cars. There's no end to the madness! Image will open up to 1,100 pixels wide.

C H O P — I was going to wait to post this image until I had completed at least a series of six, but it's going to be a while before I'm really comfortable using my right hand enough to create photoshop art again. I can easily go through 1,000 steps before the 'history palette' resets itself, so who knows how many steps I really use in a chops, and my fingers and wrist will probably need at least a week before I can work like my magic again. In the meantime, behold the first one in the series, my 1971 Buick Riviera Formal Roof.

This is a photograph of one of my 1:18 scale models. This Riviera was the famed 'boattail' fastback iteration of Buick's halo coupe. I've chopped it into a more formal appearing coupe, more like what Oldsmobile fielded with its Toronado that year, a car that shared its E-body platform with the Riviera. I thought about what GM's styling veep of that time, Bill Mitchell, would have done had the boattail been rejected by management. This new pillarless roofline is very GM circa early '70s—it reminds me of the '71 Pontiac Grand Ville coupe which used GM's luxury C-body roof. I think it's pretty spot on! I really like the way it came out.

I'm going to include a different small vintage collectible with each scale model chop. In this case, I photographed the Riv with my Mr. Peanut's pen from the 1950s.

5 comments:

  1. I've always like the Riviera, even the ovoid last series. This type of American car seems to be gone now. Toronado, Grand Prix, T-Bird...even the heavy hitters - the Eldorado and the big Lincoln coupes.

    I look at the rear overhang on these older cars and it seems so odd now. Back then, we had all the sheet metal and chrome in the world. Gas mileage was not really a concern. Cubic inches were good.

    Before I get all verklempt about rear overhang, I hope you are on the mend. Fingers are a good thing.

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  2. Sorry Casey - maybe I should have read your earlier post where you said that you were on the mend and that some of your fingers were back in action.

    Good news.

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  3. no need for apologizing. thank you for your thoughts!

    proportions of rear wheel drive cars were so different than the mostly front wheel drive cars of today. And you're right, weight is always the enemy these days unless you're a Range Rover, BMW or Mercedes! One of my recent chops, a white Town Car, looked like a fairly modern luxury car when I finished. Then I did an extended trunk/rear overhang version, and it instantly looked more like a classic American luxury car.

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  4. AS I SAID BEFORE I'LL LEAVE THE SHOP TALK TO YOU GUYS. ALL I DO IS LOOK AND DROOL.
    GRANNY

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  5. Casey,

    Brilliant! Buick seems to be on a roll, but they need something like this, as we've discussed before! Riviera Coupe/Wildcat Convertible. I'd love to see you do this as a droptop.

    I'm going backwards through your posts and have now seen that you hurt your hand somehow. I'm glad you are on mend and hope to see you up to warp speed soon!

    Paul, New York City

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