Spy Magician's Custom CARS Car
Hey there! SpyMagician here!
Like our fearless leader, Julius Marx, I am a HUGE fan of Disney Pixar's Cars! And I finally got around to
doing a custom "figure" I've been meaning to make for ages... Now I love my real car, a Black Cherry
Pearl '05 Scion xA.
So what would be cooler than a toy xA toy done in the style of the Cars Movie? Now a diecast of my car
is not that common, most Scion toys are of the xB. But in Japan there are a few toys of the Toyota ist,
the Japanese version of my xA.
So I finally tracked one down and finally could start my project!
Step 1: The first step was to disassemble the toy , sand it a bit for repainting (I was fortunate that
the original Ist Diecast was silver, so I didn't need strip the paint, I'd just paint right over the silver)
and sculpt the 2 key details, the Cars Movie style eyebrow and mouth.
To do this I needed some putty that could be sculpted but would adhere to diecast. I was in new territory
here as my normal work involves action figures that are all plastic so I can use polymer clays. In this
case I found some Quicksteel Putty at Pep Boys. It sets VERY FAST however, so I only had about 5-10 minutes
to do the sculpt!!! Unlike with Sculpey, which won't set until you heat cure it, giving you hours and hours
to work the sculpt, I had to do a quick rough sculpt and finish the rest by carving and sanding. The Quicksteel
sanded very well though, and I got a good seamless bond to the metal. To sculpt the eyebrow, I used some more
Quicksteel Putty and sculpted right onto the plastic windshield after removing it from the car body.
This was much easier as it was a simple shape.
Step 2: Step 2 required that I paint the body and eyebrow in the Black Cherry Pearl metallic paint. I
checked Pep Boys for the exact color but it was not avaiable but I found a similar color. It's a touch
darker than my actual car but not so much that it doesn't work.
I masked part of the windshield and window piece and sprayed both that and the car body. This was easy enough,
but the finish lacked the high gloss I wanted, so I had to add a coat of clear lacquer. The eyes were done
by adding a piece of adhesive white vinyl with the eyeballs hand painted.
Step 3: Assembly and detail work.
With the body paint done I was ready to paint detail and re-assemble the car. I chose to paint the clear
windows gray, as that's how the Cars in the movie look, and also painted the clear headlights silver to
match the style the Mattel Cars toys have. Some detail lines in the grill, as well as some black for the
body panels, and a coat of mettalic red for the taillights and the paint was done!
Finishing! I still wasn't happy w/ the glossiness of the paint so I tried some car wax, but to no
avail... Finally, I used some Tamiya Polishing Compound and that did the trick, giving the high gloss
finish I was after!
I decided that the Car would need a name so I'm calling him Xavier, since he's an xA. Clever eh? LOL
Here's Xavier with an original diecast Toyota Ist:
And here he is with Radiator Springs McQueen!
With Xavier finished, I'm tempted to do more custom Cars, particularly of my friends cars (sadly some diecasts are
even harder to find than my xA, as you don't often get toys of practical economy cars....)
SpyMagician
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