Let’s Get Started With My Hotwheels ‘Mad Max’ Guinea pig.
Learning By Doing - Making A Gaslands Car
By now you will all know that I am a procrastinator! Well, I’m a ‘nervous modeller’ who is a little bit too meticulous and am apt to never actually finish some projects because I don’t think I’m doing a good job.
SO… I’m just going for it with this one!
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| Above: Mad Max Fury Road Road Warrior car. |
The great thing about this hobby is that- Gaslands - is that the Hotwheels & Matchbox vehicle models are dirt cheap so there’s absolutely no sense in getting precious or worrying about ‘mucking up’ a model. Additionally, they are diecast metal models, so it’s kinda hard to screw up.
Even at the painting stage, if you make a mistake or aren’t happy you can simply strip the paint back to the bare metal and try again. So it’s the perfect model project for me.
Stage No. 1 - Choosing & Disassembling The Model
At just over a quid a pop and wide availability in the high-street stores getting hold of a Hotwheels car is incredibly easy, and there’s a huge choice available. I tend to like the classic ‘Mad Max’ cars - 1950s/60s/70s American cars and classic Muscle Cars. Though for this first test model I have chosen something a little bit more exotic as my victim! 😂
I am especially keen to try out adding a weapons turret or remote gun station and so when I saw this particular car - called 'Drift'n'Break' (Hotwheels 'Wagon Families' series) - it seemed to me that the long flat roof would make the ideal platform for adding some weapons.
[At this point I should point you towards the official GASLANDS website if you want to know a bit about the actual tabletop game rules: https://planetsmashergames.com/gaslands/ ]
Having chosen a vehicle you next have to turn your ‘civilian’ ride into a post-apocalyptic road warrior. This entails - perhaps - some conversion, weaponising and -of course - a sick looking paint job. You can get all the inspiration you need by (re)watching ‘Mad Max:Fury Road’ as the level of customisation of vehicles in this movie is mind-blowing!
But, before the work starts, you might want to disassemble the Hotwheels/Matchbox car so that you can strip off the original paint job or do some advanced ‘Frankenstein’ conversions to the body. You don’t have to - you can simply paint over the original scheme and glue on some bits and pieces if you want to keep things simple. That’s the beauty of this hobby - nobody will criticise your work.
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| Above: I'm thinking of adding this ANVIL INDUSTRY rocket launcher accessory to my car. Anvil have a wide range of Gaslands weapons and accessories but this one seemed just right for the long flat roof of my Hotwheels wagon! |
Link to ANVIL INDUSTRY weapon page: Gaslands Weapons Accessories
For me, I wanted to not only repaint my car but also add some post-apocalyptic armour to my car, so I did want to take the model to bits. This mean drilling out the rivets that hold the model together and taking the components apart…
Next: On to the paint stripping stage!
Edit: I unearthed my collection of Gaslands accessories that I had bought for this series of projects. These include figures, wheels, weapons and such like...
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