Photoshop customs
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April 28, 2022 at 08:57 #73309Rik HovingKeymaster
1941 Buick 4-door Sedan Custom project Larry Pointer and I did over the past few weeks. Introduction by Larry Pointer.
1941 Buick Touring
Inspiration. Imagination. Visions of āwhat ifā, through rosy glasses tinted with nostalgia.
Adrenalin rushes, from āwhat wasā memories to āwhat ISā happenings, racing across the World Wide Web. Rocketing off into the spaces of āwhat could beā.
Random thoughts, ideas, most often float in vague form in an ether haze. Collect, gather, then ZAP! Fusion into āwhat NEEDS to beā!
Daydreams invariably are interrupted by reality. All those noisome practical barriers and limits. The dreamer is left helpless, stranded on the platform as another dream lifts off and away.
But WAIT! Thereās more: To borrow from that daydreamer George Gershwin, āIt aināt necessarily so!ā
Or, the McCoys, āHang on, Sloopy!ā (1965)
This one-off bespoke Buick from 1941 denies all the rules reality tries to lay on the common dreamerman.
This dream has a story, with a fairytale ending.
This dreamer is looking at his 82nd birthday. Lots of launchings have gone on before from rickety platform 82. But as always, old men dream dreams.
Buicks. When I was a kid, the neighbor gave his boy a 1940 Buick. The family car. A 4-door ātouring sedanā. It was blue; I was sickly greenā¦with envy. I can still hear that throaty straight eight.
Fast forwardā¦to a new Centuryā¦to the Internet, and the articles and forums of Custom Car Chronicle. And a photograph: A 1940 GM touring sedan. With a tastefully lowered lid. Chopped. Thanks to David Zivot and Michelle Viatris for finding that 1940s image and sharing their discovery.
Setting in motion another dream. āWhat if!ā Iād always admired another 4-door car from the days of hiding the ālittle pagesā in the odd schoolbook. That car was the Buddy Ohanesian Mercury. Dick Bertolucci had crafted a removable metal roof for what had been a 4-door phaeton. Unquestionably that Mercury still stands as one of the very best from the Golden Age of customizing art.
Now, images of that Ohanesian Merc can be accessed on the Rik Hoving Custom Car Photo Archive. That archive stands as the most important preservation platform for customizing art in existence.
Rik Hoving himself has emerged as a moving force in recognition of that ārolling artā. Additionally, his skills in digital rendering of custom creation possibilities have come to be recognized as nothing less than state of the art.
āEnjoy the Beauty of Customizingā, Rik Hoving admonishes.
ZAP! Through the creative vision of Rik Hoving, digital magic has brought this old manās Buick dream into reality.
But let him tell āthe rest of the storyā.
Larry PointerThis project began with an email that Larry send me on March 14, 2022.
“First, always a story with Larry.
In 1968, I located a 1940 Buick Super 4-door phaeton, dumped in a gully out in the foothills of the Bighorn mountains. It had been badly wrecked in a roll-over accident. The story was some girls who were guests and a dude ranch nearby had crashed it. Perhaps even killed in the accident. The car was dragged to this drainage and dumped over the bank.
Conquistador friend Gary Richards and Blaine Murphy, back from Vietnam, helped me fish it out with a boom truck. I rebuilt a chassis, mounted the damaged body, and we used the boom truck to tow it over the mountains to Riverton, Wyoming where I was starting a new teaching job.
Starting on the Buick stopped, unfortunately, as major life changes dropped the project form priorities. Sadly, the old Buick was again left to its own devices. Or the crusher, eventually. Life happens.
Now, approaching age 82, with the physical demands of a car project less and less practical, I turned to surfing the internet, innocently. Then, I found all these Buicks for sale! Hmmmm. Phaetons were there. Priced astronomically. But also, the four-door touring sedans. Not so much. But far away, and still beyond a reasonable retirement commitment at my age.
Dream on.Then I got to thinking: What about a digital project. Maybe….something Rik Hoving might consider. Maybe the CCC community could chime in. We could take a Bertolucci approach. Create a digital hard-top phaeton 1941 Buick…Roadmaster, why not think about that?
What if a 1941 Buick Roadmaster Touring Sedan were to be converted to a removable hard-top phaeton, as per the Ohanesian 4-door Mercury built by Dick Bertolucci?
Then I remembered the 1938 Graham digital rendering you had done, which was exactly what had been festering in my fevered brain all along. That roof was what I was visualizing.”Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
April 28, 2022 at 08:59 #73310Rik HovingKeymasterThe actual project started on April 1, 2022, when I found a nice side view of a 1941 Buick 4-door sedan.
I prepped the photo, cutting the car out of the background, and extending the background inside the car so that I could easily lower and chop the car without having to think about fixing the background.The first part was get a good feel for the car. So I did a quick version of a “regular” chopped top one with stock windshield angle and one with laid back windshield angle. These are unfinished images, and only meant to get a feel for how the sedan convertible with lift off hard top would look eventually.
Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
April 28, 2022 at 09:03 #73311Rik HovingKeymasterI thought about using a ’41 Buick convertible convertible windshield, vent window and door tops on the 4-door Buick, but in the end I decided that finding a donor car for those parts in reality would make the project not realistic. So I opted to modify the sedan doors in a way that could be done on the real car. Larry had mentioned he would like to have the longer Roadmaster wheelbase, so I first stretched the wheelbase, the hood and the cowl behind the front fenders to Roadmaster specs.
I modified the windshield top corners to make them look more convertible style, and cut the top off. Then lowered the top till it looked right to me. (No idea how much it is chopped!) With the base elements in place I started fine tuning the details. Adding the window frames taken from donor 4-door convertible photos, adding the center piece above the doors. The most work went into shaping the top to where it looked just right for me. I wanted to keep the rear of the lower body all stock, so the modifications are only in the top.
With the top getting shaped I also cleaned up the rest of the car, modified the skirts a bit, removing the trim on the skirts, and removing the rubber rock shield on the rear fender. I also removed the hood ornament, the hood side louvres and the peak in the front of the front fender.
Adding wider white wall tires and a few different Custom Hubcap options and colors are the finishing touch… What do you think?
Stock lowered.
Roadmaster wheelbase, stock main body lowered.
Final version with chopped removable hard-top
Color and hubcap variation 1.Color and hubcap variation 2.
Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
April 28, 2022 at 15:06 #73312TorchieParticipantGreat to see this photo shopped version come to life. So to speak…..
Any one of the final versions would work for me.
I always dig seeing some of the lesser used models and what great customs tbey can become.
Great job Larry and Rik.
Torchie
May 17, 2022 at 16:12 #73361Rik HovingKeymasterDigital Restyled design study to create a Custom 1939-40 Ford Coupe inspired by the comments made by FoMoCo designer E.T. Gregorie, in the book “the Remarkable Design Team and their Classic Fords of the 1930’s and 1940’s” book by Henry Dominiguez.
ā£
I based my Custom Car on a side view photo of an 1939 Ford Deluxe Coupe because I have always like the ’39 slightly better than the ’40 model. Especially for a Custom version. The little more bulkier hood, simple grille and stainless windshield frame of the ’39 model are details that make it more attractive for a Custom base to me.This is the first one in a series I plan to do with several different design options for different tops, and styling details. This one is done as if it could have been created by the design team the Ford Motor Company around 1940. Creating E.T. Gregorie’s vision based on the production model, perhaps with Jimmy Summers watching over the shoulders of the builders to give some Custom Restyling guidance. Early Style Custom, with a lot of small and not so small details to get the right balance.
Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
May 18, 2022 at 03:39 #73372TonyParticipantstainless windshield frame of the ā39 model
How I wish that were true!
While belt trim is stainless, the windshield is chromed steel. And it rusts. Especially the lower half pieces. It’s a real pain in the neck. It’s not uncommon to see restored cars with re chromed frames that have rust blisters.
May 18, 2022 at 09:31 #73375Rik HovingKeymasterThanks Tony, did not know that was chromed steel… Learned something.
Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
May 19, 2022 at 09:18 #73378TinwolfParticipantIm clearly bias for -41 Buicks and though this is interesting to investigate “what if” it was built as a coupe , it gets a -39-40 Merc look around the sidewindows . Looks abit “coach built” compared to a regular -41 Buick coupe posts …
Riks original picture
Abit more speedboat-slant
A slanted B-pillar version
Wolf
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May 19, 2022 at 14:30 #73385Larry PointerParticipantThanks for sharing.Ā That is beautiful.Ā Love how you did the B pillar.Ā Rik was working with the 41 phaeton’s removable divider between front and rear door.Ā Like the 39-40 Mercury coupe, which did a separate stamping for the door up to the sill, and a separate window surround, as you know.Ā Very elegant, Wulf!
May 20, 2022 at 00:35 #73387Quentin HallParticipantLove the Buick renderings. Iāve always been drawn to customs that lend themselves to wearing jeans and t shirt during the day and a black tux at night ā¦ mind you Iāve worn a a tux twice in my lifeā¦ but I love the āideaā of arriving someplace in a Custom and exiting,Ā looking sharp.
The best way to describe the styling is āFormalā.
Love it.July 19, 2022 at 21:14 #73592Dave TartagliaParticipantI came across a beautiful 1941 Packard 180 Sport Sedan by LeBaron.Ā It’s lowered and sectioned about two inches just below the stock belt-line. The top was lowered to match. Packard owners were conservative, so I left most of the Packard insignia in place.
July 25, 2022 at 13:07 #73622TinwolfParticipanthttps://www.flickr.com/photos/54664152@N02/16407375949/in/photostream/
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July 25, 2022 at 16:23 #73628Larry PointerParticipantLoving the downward sweep to rear of the window line. The rearward flow really streamlines the form, doesn’t it.
August 1, 2022 at 07:39 #73665Rik HovingKeymasterLarry and I have been collaborating on a new project car. Just sketching and creating ideas, no plans to actually built the car… Well perhaps somebody else might get inspired to do just that. For now this is just a fun project creating dream cars, dream customs.
One of the cars we we emailing back and forth about was the ’55 Chrysler or similar bodied cars. And how good those lines on that car already look from the factory and how great the very few chopped versions we know looked. Larry and I share a passion for creating the “what if the designers had a free hand in creating a one off Custom Car for one of the brands executives” Or perhaps the chief designers home project, building that dream custom from one his design sketches that did not make it to the final cut.
Perhaps Larry can share some more of the thoughts/ideas we had when we started on this project.
Right now there is a very quick side view and a front 3/4 view. Its a still ongoing project and there will be a rear 3/4 view as well. The front 3/4 view will need a few more tune up details and I will be creating a few more different colors to see how much the color will impact the overall look and feel of this Luxury Custom Car.
The side view was created mainly to see how a more subtile chop would work. And also how the rear fenders would look with the chrome plated extension piece removed so that the beautiful shaped rear fender would show better and with the taillights flipped upside down. All just sketched in.
Front 3/4 view Stock car photo I started with.
Restyled with a mild chopped top, Widened vent window, lowered suspension. Rear wheel opening moved up a few inches, modified grille. Modified headlights to flow better with the top of the fenders. Moved in parking lights. Slightly modified bumpers front and rear. New much slimmer side trim , shaved emblems and ’56 Hubcaps.
Second version with the side trim shaved to show off the beautiful character line even better. And this version has wire wheels, although I did modify them a little to make them less deep.
And the same in Jade green…
Enjoy the beauty of Customizing
August 1, 2022 at 13:34 #73668 -
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