Elgin Park is a photo-realistic car town, at 1:24 scale

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Photographer and model maker Michael Paul Smith has created a nostalgic look at the 1950s in 1/24 scale by combining replicas of classic cars with his own miniature buildings from the fictional town of Elgin Park. As a collection of his work is released in an upcoming book, this short documentary looks at the artist's inspiration for the project.

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Elgin Park is a photo-realistic car town, at 1:24 scale originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 03 Feb 2015 12:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Elgin Park is a photo-realistic car town, at 1:24 scale

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Photographer and model maker Michael Paul Smith has created a nostalgic look at the 1950s in 1/24 scale by combining replicas of classic cars with his own miniature buildings from the fictional town of Elgin Park. As a collection of his work is released in an upcoming book, this short documentary looks at the artist's inspiration for the project.

Continue reading Elgin Park is a photo-realistic car town, at 1:24 scale

Elgin Park is a photo-realistic car town, at 1:24 scale originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 03 Feb 2015 12:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Industrial designer seeking classic car, sketches his finds as he shops

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Canadian industrial design professor Bruce Thomson is on the hunt for a classic car, and he's chronicling the search in a novel way. Thomson is using his skill as an artist to sketch the vintage cars that he checks out and is posting driving impressions of them on his blog. He initially started looking for a Triumph TR6, but now a wide range of vintage European rides have been added to the list of possibilities.

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Industrial designer seeking classic car, sketches his finds as he shops originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Industrial designer seeking classic car, sketches his finds as he shops

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Canadian industrial design professor Bruce Thomson is on the hunt for a classic car, and he's chronicling the search in a novel way. Thomson is using his skill as an artist to sketch the vintage cars that he checks out and is posting driving impressions of them on his blog. He initially started looking for a Triumph TR6, but now a wide range of vintage European rides have been added to the list of possibilities.

Continue reading Industrial designer seeking classic car, sketches his finds as he shops

Industrial designer seeking classic car, sketches his finds as he shops originally appeared on Autoblog on Tue, 20 Jan 2015 11:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Cars and coffee combine to make invigorating art [w/video]

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Coffee water color

Let's be honest; without coffee, nothing would ever get done. The cup of joe has done more to boost productivity than just about anything else on the planet. However, Romanian artist Adrian Mitu has found a new use for java - making fascinating automotive art.

Mitu's style is really cool just because of its simplicity. Essentially, he is using coffee in the same way other artists might use watercolors. His images start as pencil drawings, and then he adds details and depth with his brew. Occasionally, he even incorporates traditional inks with the coffee to add an extra dash of color.

According to a profile about Mitu on Romanian auto site Promotor, he studied architecture and interior design. However, his real love is cars. He started using coffee to paint one day because he was too lazy to get up and grab his standard colors. He dipped his paintbrush in the beverage next to him and hasn't quit since. Mitu goes by the name Aquarelief on Facebook and has a large portion of his portfolio for you to view. They are mostly automotive paintings but a few motorcycles and planes as well.

Check out our gallery above for some of his work or his Facebook page for a whole lot more. Scroll down for a video showing off how he uses coffee to create a watercolor. Unfortunately, it's not in English and there aren't subtitles. But he begins adding coffee to the drawing about four minutes into the short film.

Continue reading Cars and coffee combine to make invigorating art [w/video]

Cars and coffee combine to make invigorating art [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Fri, 09 May 2014 19:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ugly Moto makes beautiful motorcycle art [w/video]

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Ugly Moto Ducati Print

Ugly Moto is a horrible name for a company that makes such wonderful motorcycle art. The creation of artist Francis Ooi, the company's illustrations focus on some of the iconic racing bikes of the 1960s and 1970s.

The artwork has an elegant simplicity that really makes it pop. It would fit just about anywhere from a home office to the bedroom of a young gearhead. Ooi has completed six illustrations so far covering classic cycles from Honda, Ducati, Yamaha and even Harley-Davidson. According to his site, the Suzuki RGB500 ridden by Barry Sheene will be the next one released. All of the prints are priced at $65 and are limited to 100 copies. They are all about 16.53 inches by 23.58 inches in size.

According to his website, these prints are just a hobby for Ooi and his real career is as the creative director at an ad agency. He creates the illustrations on his Mac, and he estimates that each design with about 800 components and layers takes about a month to complete. You can get idea of the process involved in the time-lapse video below.

Continue reading Ugly Moto makes beautiful motorcycle art [w/video]

Ugly Moto makes beautiful motorcycle art [w/video] originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 08 May 2014 19:16:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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What if all famous movie cars had to be cheap?

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Unconventional Heroes by Gerald Bear

Hero cars in films need to be sexy. It's why Doc Brown and Marty went back in time in a DeLorean, and why Bo and Luke Duke tore about Hazzard County in a Dodge Charger. The stars of the show need to get about in something cool.

Artist Gerald Bear seems to disagree with this notion, as his latest series of illustrations, Unconventional Heroes, shows. He's taken the look of famous cars from both the big and small screen and applied their appearance to far, ahem, more humble offerings.

Starsky and Hutch's Ford Gran Torino is transformed into a Fiat Panda, while Speed Racer's Mach 5 takes the form of a BMW Isetta bubble car. Niki Lauda's Ferrari Formula One car, though, is subjected to the funniest transformation, although Optimus Prime's latest form is pretty humorous, as well.

Take a look below at the gallery of images, and be sure to let us know which is your favorite.

What if all famous movie cars had to be cheap? originally appeared on Autoblog on Mon, 07 Apr 2014 18:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This computer-generated Ferrari 250 GTO carved from marble rocks

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Lapicida Marble Ferrari GTO

The Ferrari 250 GTO ranks as perhaps the most valuable production car ever made. In just the past two years, units of the ultimate '60s sports car have sold for $32 million, $35 million and maybe as high as $52 million. With just 39 of them ever assembled, these Ferrari owners are among a rarefied class of an already top-tier class of car collectors. So once you collect the ultimate car, then what do you do? How about buy a scale model of it hewn from a single block of Arabescato marble by stone specialist Lapicida?

Interestingly, no sculptor developed a leathery callouses on his or her hands over the hundreds of man hours surely necessary to create this work of art, nor were dozens of hand tools worn to the nub in the pursuit of this homage to Italian performance. To create the 1:3.6 replica of a 1962/1963 GTO, Lapicida simply laser-scanned an actual GTO and fine-tuned the resulting data in 3D modeling software. Then, the file was sent to a computer-controlled, five-axis mill to shape the marble, which was selected because the veining gave the illusion of speed. Finally, it was hand-finished to make sure the details were as crisp as possible. The completed model measures 47.2-inches long, 18.1-inches wide and 13.4-inches tall and retails for a tidy £30,000 - over $49,000 USD.

Impressive though it may be, it seems hard to imagine spending that sort of money on a car that you can't sit in or drive down the road. Then again, if you can afford to own a real 250 GTO, it's barely pocket change. Lapicida also takes commissions, so if you want a marble model of your car, they're happy to do it. Then again, if you just need your foyer retiled or your personal chef's is demanding an upgraded kitchen, they'll do that, too. Scroll down to get the full details on the model.

Continue reading This computer-generated Ferrari 250 GTO carved from marble rocks

This computer-generated Ferrari 250 GTO carved from marble rocks originally appeared on Autoblog on Thu, 06 Feb 2014 14:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This Auto Aerobics car art ties our brains in knots like pretzels

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Artist Chris Labrooy has made some twisted art with some 1968 Pontiac Bonnevilles.

We like cars, and we like art. Naturally, Chris Labrooy's Auto Aerobics series - computer-generated images of some seriously contorted 1968 Pontiac Bonnevilles floating in mid-air - instantly clicked with us. If the Pontiacs weren't floating or hollow, we could be fooled into believing the image is real. But where's the fun in that?

Check out the gallery we included of Labrooy's Bonneville art, and feel free too head over to his website for some Formula One humor.

This Auto Aerobics car art ties our brains in knots like pretzels originally appeared on Autoblog on Sat, 14 Dec 2013 14:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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