Well, I know I have not been updating my site very much but I decided it was definitely time to start posting things here. I made a post on gizmodo in 2008 detailing the project that I took on for my son. It is a Hasbro millennium falcon That I bought at WalMart for about 150 dollars (way too much money for the original HASBRO toy i might add).
Here is what it looks like originally. Kind of lame if you ask me.
http://www.starwars.com/img/vault/collecting/20080709b/falcon_bg.jpg
I quickly decided that the Chinese manufactured toy was way too clean and not realistic enough for my son. This is AMERICA RIGHT?! It just does not look like the “real” spacecraft AT ALL. So I decided to tear apart some other toys, brutally rip the sensors out of them, add those sensors to my son’s millennium falcon…re-wire them with some cheap Chinese stuff and make a way better and much more “badass” millennium falcon for him. Then I decided to paint it like the models used in the movies. You can’t just have a cool toy that costs this much and not mod it…right? I am an artist, so that part was kind of fun! :) That’s what I call “sticki’n it to THE MAN!!!!”
The part I was mentioning about the sensors is pretty cool…you can clap your hands or make another annoying or loud noise and the lights will come on. Or, I also installed an infra-red sensor that detects changes in the light conditions. If you turn a light on or off in the room, it activates the LED lights that I drilled into the hull of the ship. It’s pretty damn neat if you ask me. :)
Anyway, it was featured on GIZMODO.COM and since then, I have still been modding toys from all kinds of stores. Some things I mod from stuff I find at the goodwill store here in town. I will be posting these toys here, on my website to inspire you to do the same. Creatively modifying toys that are boring and homogenized crapola is a culture jammming effort that we should all aspire to. MAKE THEM BETTER! Nobody wants to play with unrealistic junk.
Click on the images to enlarge them…
So anyway, check out the original GIZMODO post. This project was very fun. I will have even more toy modded toys here soon. And, a rocket launcher I made from some
very special parts I found. :)
Hubbard
April 8, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I remember this one. And GAWD YOU ROX MY SOX!!!
admin
April 9, 2010 at 10:13 am
I love you too Hubbard.
mike
May 10, 2010 at 5:01 pm
speechless buddy… that’s my feeling when I first saw this… I’ve been keeping this same toy for a long time for my self. I understand you are an artist, but I was wondering if you had some advice, tutorial, book or something that I could read in order to try something like this on my toy?
anyways.. keep up modding, you are doing an excellent job
admin
May 13, 2010 at 8:43 pm
Well thank you VERY much Mike. I don’t really have a tutorial but shoot me an email if you have any questions on how I did the painting. I used colored pencils, acrylic paint, airbrush, and other mixed media to do the detail work. Then I clear coated the whole mess with krylon acrylic matte finish clear spray from a rattle can. It all turned out just fine because I wanted my son to be able to still play with it, without rubbing off the paint. The sensors were taken from an old Halloween toy and mounted/drilled and stuck to the inside of the toy with a hot glue gun from Walmart. I was able to use a multimeter and some experimenting with the circuitry from the toy I dismantled with the sensors and made it all work. It was frustrating at first but with a little patience and a lot of time it all worked out peachy.
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July 30, 2010 at 1:46 pm
Also, weblog often and with fascinating material to keep people interested in coming back and checking for updates.