Category Archives: Automobile
Godzilla + Hokusai: Red Fuji (Stupid Clouds)
I finished the entirety of the headlights last night – but in the interest of continuity and having additional blog posts for the future, I’ll give a last preview of the last side sans monster. I started to run out of motivation on this one, not only because I was getting excited about the front of the headlights and their glitter involvement, but it is nigh upon impossible to paint all those teeny clouds in straight lines (even Japanese clouds are well organized).
Efficiently patterned clouds
Obviously by the time I’d taken this photo, I had also already started the fronts of the headlights. Which, unfortunately, there will be no preview for, as immediately upon completion, I whisked them away to the auto body shop to await clear coating. Hopefully, the clear coat will agree with the glitter.
“Being shiny is awesome, no?”
“Agreed”
Godzilla + Hokusai: Mas Fuji
Third side completed. Well actually, third and fourth side completed, but I’ve got to be able to blog about something else later, too.
Now that is a magical sunset
This side will feature “Jet Jaguar” on it, a magical mystery robot wearing a speedo outfit in alluring shades of Happy Meal packaging. Also with a frightening robot smile. He looks very much the Power Ranger baddie from the 90′s.
Godzilla + Hokusai: Lightning Under Fuji
The completed second side of the left headlight:
Lightning: Apparently like pointy lava
I hope that no one judges me on the backgrounds of my photos, as it usually includes my messy work desk, or my messy art desk at home. THIS ONE, however, not only features my messy work desk in the background, but is also sitting on top of a large check that makes me look a little bit like a baller, or else a minimum wage worker getting her biweekly check from the MacDo. If you only knew… I make WAY less than minimum wage.
This particular background will feature the “Alien Cyborg Monster” known as Gigan, who according to the Godzilla Wiki, has a hooks for hands and a chainsaw / rotary cutter in his abdomen. I’m pretty sure the people who wrote that didn’t do an internet search for rotary cutter. A monster with a quilting tool in his chest doesn’t seem that frightening, to be honest.
P.S. See why I’m saving up for a new camera?
Godzilla + Hokusai: Great Wave over Kanagawa
I’m completing all sides of the headlights before I put on the Godzilla monsters – I figure I change my mind often enough that by the time all parts are painted, I’ll have really solidified that yes, King Gidorah is the monster for me. Or in this case, he’s the monster that will be flying in all his 3 headed glory over the tops of the waves of Kanagawa. You can see the little sailors cowering in fear of his triple laser breath.
Cower, sailors!
Side note on why today was not as awesome as it could have been: I’ve been selling jeans on e-bay to try to fund the purchase of a new camera. I used to work at 7 for All Mankind, and after 3 years there I found myself with an incredible surplus of jeans that I either bought for myself and didn’t like, or bought for other people who never ended up following through on purchasing them. I’ve sold, I don’t know, six or seven pairs now and everything has gone smoothly until today. I received a message from the woman who purchased a pair, basically berating me for them not being as she expected and saying they are old, stained, and worn, and the most disgusting thing she’s ever received. Now, I know they’ve never been worn because they have been in my closet for over a year, so unless I’ve got some sneaky designer jeans wearing elves in my closet, they shouldn’t be particularly “disgusting.”
It’s not really the fact that there was a problem that really bothered me; sometimes flaws are overlooked and mistakes are made, and I’m certainly not exempt from large-scale mistakes (and lots of smaller ones). It’s that this woman is going on as if I’ve personally damaged her life, as if by this pair of $35 pants that are not up to her standards, somehow I’ve disillusioned her view of humanity and started a whole future slew of trust issues. I’ve done literally everything I know how to do to resolve her problem. I feel that at this point… it’s not me, it’s her. They are pants. This is e-bay. I try my hardest every day of my life to be honest and straightforward, and though she has accused me several times in several different ways of doing it, I am not a liar.
Anyway. I needed to vent about that, because the best thing to do when life isn’t fair is write it down. It was really bothering me all day, festering in my head that I made a terrible mistake… but once I have it down in words in front of me, I’m thinking. Pants. Not as important as all that.
Hokusai + Godzilla… It Begins
After seeing a picture of the Harley dashboard that I made for my dad (pictures to come! I promise! It’s being clear-coated!), a good friend of mine immediately dashed up the stairs to his house and came down bearing two pieces of the exact same type of plastic. ”Dude, I have something for you to do too.” Turns out the pieces of plastic were the headlight surrounds, or “barn doors,” for a Mazda Miata, and he also wanted me to “do something cool.” Well, this gentleman is much more young and more hip than my own pops, so I brainstormed verbally in front of him until we came to an agreement.
GODZILLA (and friends / enemies. The more I learn about Godzilla, the more I see that they were neither friend nor foe all of the time. My thought is because those costumes are way too awesome to use only once.)
Later, I asked him to see what he wanted the background to be… I had been thinking maybe comic-book pop art, and his wife had been suggesting a more sepia-toned artwork like the backgrounds of the original movie. Not only am I not so good at realistic Japanese movie backgrounds… sepia tones are not my friend. I was glad when he texted me back “Hokusai’s Great Wave or Tokyo in Flames!” Which, in retrospect, is a pretty tall order, but I guess I didn’t know what I was getting into. How hard could a great wave be?
Pretty hard, I think now.
Which results in the following picture. This is the beginning… the first photo after messy sanding, smelly primer, and several poorly scaled line drawings before resorting to Picnik, the miracle program that is being shut down soon. Now, I’m no computer savvy girl, but the fact that this program is being eliminated is perhaps the most devastated I’ll ever be about anything computer related. It’s the only thing I’m good at on the computer! How else can I make 90 headers for my blog and outline great works of art so I can trace them on car parts (without spending a lot of money)?
Anyway. Here is the beginning…
And in the Beginning, he said... Let There Be White
