In the comments for last week’s Thunderbird question, I posted a couple of quick thumbnail paste-ups of how a new T-bird derivative might look. It’s something I’ve done a number of times; I sometimes use an image-editing software package called Adobe® Photoshop® (perhaps you’ve heard of it; it’s rather popular with the young people, I’ve been told). Here’s a retrospective of some past creations. FLAMESUIT DISCLAIMER: I am quite aware of that none of these display world-class photoshopping, I’m not trying to brag on my mad skillz. I am more of a publishing wonk than a true graphic artist. Most of these were slapped together pretty quickly, and I rarely devote more time than necessary to simply convey a concept. I’ve done better stuff, but even my best work pales in comparison to others who really know p-shop and can dial in some talent to back it up.

This was my first-ever photochop, circa 1992. I grafted a Ducati 350 front end and seat onto my Bultaco, then sketched a fuel tank by hand. The result might not look like much now, but at the time my Mac LCII and Logitech Scanman handheld scanner were pretty righteous hardware for a home office. Yes, the top shock mounts have disappeared.

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Another early chop, and the first of several “-amino-ings.” This was the first chop I posted online over on the Jalop, even though I’d actually done it much earlier. The image manipulation doesn’t look so spiffy nowadays, but I still think the concept would’ve given “The Pill” some street cred.

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The “Soulchero” is probably my favorite pickup conversion. I think it works amazingly well as a photo, and as a concept. My skills had progressed at least a little by this point.

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I think nearly any vehicle is better as a shooting brake. Back when GM lied about announced that the Pontiac G8 Sport Truck was headed our way, I envisioned this. The ‘shopping is pretty quick-and-dirty, but as crude as it is, it clearly expresses a concept that just makes me giggle every time I look at it.

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Another thing I like are sedan deliveries. Again, I’d gotten technically much better by the time I did the Volvo C30, but “Bob’s Escort Service” makes me laugh. (It begs to be a LeMons team name, if it isn’t already.)

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I hesitate to include these two cringe-worthy failures. Sometimes, neither the ‘shopping nor the concept are any good. I gave up on both of these because even if I’d spent forever trying to make the images look less sucky, each one was an destined to be a smoking crater of fail. I really thought an F-10 pickup would look less stoopid. I was wrong.

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Shortening wheelbases is also fun. The Baja was hard, not only because of the complex curves of the car, but the weird perspective issues from a fairly wide-angle lens. The truck was much easier, thanks to standard straight-from-the-side shots and a big friggin’ vertical seam down the middle of the truck. This is actually from two different photos: an unaltered super-short bed from a Tacoma crew cab matched to the standard cab. [Yes, the bed and wheelbase are both uselessly short, but I imagine this being marketed as a radical Wranger-fighter (despite the long overhang) with about zippo R&D involved and about $100 worth of new tooling. Parts-Bin Engineering at its finest. They could build this tomorrow…and I would be rockin’ it (and probably rollin’ it!) by the middle of next week.]

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The objective is usually to make a ‘chop look as realistic as possible. But sometimes the very apparent “chopped-up-ed-ness” of a sketch just adds to the silliness, which in some cases is the whole point.

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Okay, this one I did actually take fairly seriously and spend a fair bit of time on. I had in my head a concept for a “minimally-extended” cab, similar to the original Dodge D-series “Club Cab” and the first Datsun King Cab. No jump seats, no extra doors, just a bit more room behind the seats and slightly longer seat rails. It took me three tries to get it right, but I am pretty satisfied with this one.

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Yes, I still do bikes. These are mashups of (in order): A Kawasaki 750 Vulcan V-twin and a 750 Zephyr; a Honda 250 Nighthawk and a 50 Dream R; and a Suzuki GN400, SP370, and GS550.

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And finally, here are the two sketches from the Thunderbird thread. The “Cougaurus” was my concept, but commenter Josh gets credit for originally envisioning the “FocusBird.”