Chevy 1500 Cali-cruizer

So I went through a fairly long phase when I was super into custom trucks (still am to some extent) and as a result of that I wanted to build a custom truck myself.  Unfortunately, I didn't have the cash to turn my F-150 into my vision of perfection; so I settled for building a model kit of one instead.  To that end I acquired a truck model kit (from a HobbyTown USA I think).  I started scheming and cutting and building and out came this heavily modified California cruiser style truck.  The process took over a year, off-and-on, but I took relatively few pictures.  I'll show you what I can and explain the rest.

The diminutive brake rotors and calipers were replaced with drilled out plastic disks with carved-down calipers made from the struts of an old Millennium Falcon model.

The back seat was ditched in favor of two 15" subs.  The awesome thing here is the "subs" are actually tiny speakers out of a laptop computer (salvaged by a friend of mine).  These were soldered to a headphone jack and I could plug this into a phone or mp3 player and the truck would play its own music (albeit quietly).

Lots of work to talk about here.  The frame and bottom pan were all one piece which I cut to pieces and reassembled slightly narrower to fit between the rims & tires taken from a Dodge Charger kit.  This necessitated a lot of scratch building, especially between the back wheels where I used several pieces of sprue to build up a cage around a scratch build rear-differential / axle assembly.  The engine has been assembled and installed mostly box stock and the exhaust pipe has been cut way short.

Here is the finished interior assembly, the (mostly) finished frame, and body-in-progress.

Here are the same pieces in the same condition but all put together.  Of note is the compressed air tank in the bed that got ditched once I decided to make the suspension static, instead of hydraulic.  You can also see how stock the interior is except for the subs, amps, and cut-up steering wheel.  You can also notice I haven't added the audio jack yet.  The most striking change to the body, of course, is the lack of roof and B and C pillars.

Again, everything all put together, this time with paint.

Here's a good shot of the completed rear frame / suspension assembly.  I know it's asymetrical, but I couldn't make myself tear it apart to fix it.  The springs came from a Ferrari F40, the first car model I built.  You can also see where I had to cut out the fenders and bed to make room for all of the new stuff.

 And the final product.  Not happy with the paint quality but I'll live with it.  This is one I wish I could build over again (like the Yellow Integra) but I won't.  Maybe I'll get another truck and try again, who knows.

 Side profile showing how low I got it.  No, I don't think it would work without airbags to raise the front fender over the wheels.

The hood up to show off the engine.  You can see how I cut off the windshield to match the A pillars and the tiny side mirrors I added late in the game.

Power Grid Africa Map

So I love playing board games.  Not just Risk and Life and old standbys like that but really the new wave of hobby games of the past few decades.  One such game, a favorite since I first played it, is Power Grid.  A game of economics, supply and demand, and budgeting and trying to power more cities than your friends.  The game comes with a two sided board with Germany on one side and America on the other.  There were subsequent expansions that included boards with more geographical locations and slightly tweeked rules appropriate to the area.  But, to my great consternation there was no Africa map.  Everywhere else, but not Africa.  An inquiry to 2F Spiel (the publisher) about a future Africa map got me a poorly translated "not a chance".  Of course, that was my perfect excuse to go all diy on this problem.  To the PhotoShop!!!

I started with a satellite image of the continent, which I overlaid with a map of the largest urban centers.  With this I mapped out my power connections between the major cities (central to  gameplay).  You can see an abandoned connection above Nairobi.

Step 2 was a big one, graphically.  The ocean got replaced with a textured color pattern and each of the regions got their own color.  These regions are also important in gameplay.  I carefully traced the boundaries between countries in each region to make a mask and then did a color shift to colorize them.  The whole landmass (including the non-Africa area) also received a filter, possibly watercolor or oil paint, to abstract out the satellite image.

Next I dropped on all of my cities.  Each one consists of city artwork swiped from another power grid map scan then modified to look less European (I think it was the Benelux map) and a name over a banner colored to match its region.  These are not exactly geographically correctly located but its mostly just a ballpark.

Here we can look at the cities up close as well as the connection costs, which were also scanned from another Power Grid map and pasted all over the map.  But this really shows how I built the power connections themselves.  First I laid down several strips of different colors and shaded them to look like wires.  Over that went a shaded grey bar to look like a pipe.  Those were placed and scaled to connect all of the cities.  Then, I used the eraser tool to remove that grey pipe in places and the cutaway was outlined in black; just to make the connections look colorful.  (it sorta takes ideas from other Power Grid maps).  Finally, some of the longer pipes got fancy brass fittings with rivets; again, inspired by other map artwork.

To finish it up the last few elements went on, including a frame from the Japan Power Grid map and "no nuclear power" icons which are both important to gameplay.  I also wrote a short rules sheet outlining minor changes to the base game but, alas, I have yet to actually print and play this map.  Hopefully someday I will, I'm rather proud of my little project.