Sunday, March 30, 2008

VANTASTIC!






Custom Vans, the rolling room, the king of the road, the shaggin wagon.

Van sitings are getting fewer and far between. I feel it was just yesterday my dad pulled into the driveway with his '78 Ford all flared and airbrushed, windows tinted, sunroof, CB and mags. I remember him getting really bumbed out cracking the flairs on every speed bump he hit until he eventually pulled them off. There is an amazing van site my friend Beth does www.rockinvan.com and you have to check it out, it's VAN HQ! It's full of great Van info. I still see some around the bay aria all worn out and faded and it makes me imagine what they looked like in there prime. It's becoming a lost art in a way.
It's rolling artwork, like a giant canvace where sappy cheese fucking rules and custom paint overload is king!
A Custom van ain't a Custom van without some airbrushing on it right? I've compiled a few pics (It's even hard to find good ones online) from my collection and a little book my friend Molly gave me a few years back "The Big Book of Vans".

spoiled brat

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Flake thee axe part 2








Today Rolfe and I shot stage one of the guitar.
It didn't need much prep as it already had a nice finish.
Just a little wet sanding so the new paint had something to grip to.
Last week I picked out some nice gold flake. If you have ever painted flake you know it can be deceiving. It can look perfect in the can but when you shoot it you end up with much larger flake chunks that you bargained for.
I wanted to get the best of both worlds so I asked my pal Steve Tamer over at AB supply if he would recommend using a smaller flake then a light coat of the big stuff, he said "Yup!"
I'm a total novice with a paint gun but I have a good feel for anything PAINT. Rolfe on the other hand is an amazing painter and has guided me threw many projects.
It was his opinion we shoot the hell out of it with the small stuff them mix in some of the big chunks. We were stoked with the end result.
We start stage 2 on Monday, Root beer panels.
Rolfe shot most of it but I managed to get a few blasts in!

Friday, March 28, 2008

CERAMICS and dumb dumbs




Oriana and I have been collecting rare and weird ceramics for a while now.
I call 'em dumb dumb dolls cause we don't just collect Kreiss.
Kreiss PSYCHO CERAMICS dominate this shelf but there are some other rarities such as this "Made in Japan" Devil/ashtray I call "Round eye".
I got it about 10 years ago at a little vintage shop in Montreal Canada.
I have managed to hang on to it through all my moves.
I have never seen him anywhere, in any books, thrift stores or on the net.

The Toe Cutter



He kinda gets it here but he's still BadAss!
He kinda reminds me of Chris Bailey (the Saints) King Buzzo and my friend Jason (Naysayers/Kilowatt)!
Check out the airbrushing/mural on the side of that Ute!

SANDMAN








Holden's SANMAN ute. Australia's custom van!
Love these, if you dig around on the net you can find a number of old side airbrushed murals. The first time I saw one of these was in MAD MAX when I was a kid. I remember scratching me head going "What the @#$@$! is that?"
Ute is short for utility. I scooped up some sales info from the day down below.

New Holden Sandman the sun 'n fun Holden Van and Ute, with all the goodies you could ever wish for. Right now you can buy Sandman with your kind of gear for your kind of fun. Here comes excitement...look at what the package on Holden Sandman Van and Ute gives you.


Standard Equipment

4-speed manual gear box
Wide hip hugging buckets
Full GTS sports instrumentation
GTS sports wheels
GTS headlamp bezels
GTS sports steering wheel with Sandman emblem
GTS vented front fenders
Sandman decals and wild stripes
Wild, wild, wild colours on the outside
Thats some package! Thats Sandman!


And there's a great choice of engines. There's the '173' six, with Holden performance, reliability and economy. The '202' six, for extra go. The '253' V8 for much more torque and performance, with almost six-cylinder economy. Or the mighty '308' V8 with all the power and performance that you'll ever need.
And Sandman vans and utes are built tough too. Full length solid steel chassis, with big coils up front and heavy duty rear leaf springs for the big loads and the rough roads.
You get Holden's forward mounted steering, for more accurate driving and true tracking when you're really on the move.

VANDAR


OK, so I want and airbrushing of a guy protecting a chick and about to fight a dragon! Oh, and I want there to be lightning in the sky and maybe some stars and shit.
Amazing.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Jeff Rassier drawing


My friend Jeff drew this and gave it to me for my birthday a few weeks ago.
I'm stoked, it's amazing. It's on board inked up all nice. Thanks Jeff!
Oriana said it looked like me, I can dig.

Gone Skating

The sanding continues


Photo by "WENDELL"

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Scooters, Unicorns and hot coco!


Watch out for this one, I here she's got a mean pink scooter and a bitchin' unicorn collection.

Car updates "GIMME DANGER"




Car updates.
Sanding...sanding...sanding...
Rolph shoots her!
I go in tomorrow for a nice long day of Bondo and more sanding.
I'll run the full deal on my resto project soon.




Some great art books I got recently.
Actually, I got Disposable a wile back but wanted to post it cause it's great.
(Thanks for the House book Andy!)

Box art/monster games






Another obsession of mine is vintage box art, specifically monster art.
I've found some pretty cool monster games over the years at garage sales and flea markets.
Aside from the Roth and Weirdo modle kit boxes I would have to say my favorite art is the THINGMAKER series.
You can still find them on e bay but they have become quite pricey.
The Green Ghost Game has one of the best box covers.
It has also recently been rereleased.
Here are a few pics from my collection.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Dog paintings


This is Pasha the dog.
My grandparents had him painted in 1976.
When my grandfather passed away my grandmother knew I was obsessed with it and gave it to me.
It has been the center piece in my various living rooms over the last 10 years or so.
I have a few other dog paintings but this is best, it's a flawless masterpiece.
It's hard to find a good dog painting, most of them suck.
I also have the counterpart piece to this painting "Princess the dog" painted by the same painter H.V.Pundleider.
My Aunt had Princess painted in 1980 and gave it to me so I could have "THE DOG PAINTING SET"
My friend Jeff has two amazing paintings of his dog.
We are having our Dog Cider painted, Will post when he's done.

Monday, March 24, 2008

More Weird-ohs!






More Weird-ohs stuff.
I found this cool Digger mask at the flea market.

Weird-ohs artist BILL CAMPBELL!






Bill Campbell is another one of my favorite artists, if not my most.
Bill is the artist behind the Hawk model companies 1960's Weird-Ohs series.
He also did the box art for many WW2 planes, trains and cars witch proved him to be an all around great artist.
The Weird-ohs series later spawned the Frantics, the Silly Surfers and an off-shoot line of plastic toys, Halloween masks and board games.
The Hawk company has recently re-released the Weird-ohs, Frantics and Silly Surfers kits with the original box art.
Here is some of Bill's more well know as well as rare artwork.
There is a great online interview with him here my Friend Eyebone sent me. http://www.bonediggers.com/1-2/weird/weird1.html
My Buddy Dave Milner just did an article on the kits for Gearhead #16 and it's a great read!
You can find the reissues all over e bay.

Yup


This is on the "LIST".