At the moment, this is pretty much still a Virtual Custom...so if it should be moved to the Customizing Ideas forum I'm OK with that.

Little bit of story:

After Joecon, I was presented with an opportunity, I took advantage of the opportunity and came home with a truck full of Dirty, Icky Joe stuff. Some of which was worth keeping...A lot of which was not. Here I'm trying to deal with some of the NOT.




That's 13 Vamp and Stinger Shells...all with problems beyond missing parts.

Playing around with Photoshop at work on a slow day yesterday, I came up with:

and


I won't be able to do the Stinger simply because it's too many parts.....I don't think the cost of casting that many parts would be worth it, because complete stingers are pretty cheap as it is.

So I like the idea of the Eco Vamp...I'm thinking about doing this simply to take Junk Vamp shells that would otherwise be rollerskated at the next Johio Meet...and turn them into cheap but cool customs to sell.



This is what I'm thinking...I'll work the barrel halves into a solid peice that will cover the back of the vamp (That's where most of the shells have their dammage). Cast that cover, a steering wheel, and a custom front bumper bar. a little paint, maybe some custom decals.

Do you like it?
Would you buy it?
for $5?
for $10?
for $15?
for $20?

Can you think of a better use or idea for all these vehicle shells?

thoughts are always welcome.

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I like the concept. If you were keeping them, I'd use the same formula but paint them in different colors for different purposes. Just basic non-combat military transportation, like WWII era jeeps even. But to sell them, I like the idea of making one model, and having all the multiples be of that same product.

I think it's a creative way to salvage some otherwise unusable parts. Only other thing I could think of, off the top of my head, only semi in jest would be if you had some vision for a custom in-scale transformer on par with what JFAK did with his Devastator, but instead with using VAMPs and STINGERS only.

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I like the purple and green. That might be because of the Joker or because of the Dreadnoks land set. If you do go with the Eco theme, Mundo had a great idea of using a water launcher on my DEF VAMP that I think works so much better here. The rear of the vamp is empty so it has room for a reservoir of water. A plunger of some kind, a little tubing, and a barrel of styrene and you have a cheap easily made squirt cannon. The only tricky part is the engineering.

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I think both are grovey.

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First off, cool concepts.

On the "what would you pay?" question, I think that you might want to try a test shot on eBay. Maybe make two simultaneously (one for yourself and figuring one will almost certainly sell) and then use that first auction to determine interest/value. If it goes for a small fortune, you've got the second one on hand that you can sell as a second-chance offer to the next highest bidder. Then, whatever that second highest bid was, I'd round it down to the nearest X.99 figure and set that as the "buy it now" for subsequent offerings with an opening bid of $4.99 (or whatever you feel is the least you could stanx to part with one for).

I've taken essentially this same approach to a number of customs that I found were relatively easy to reproduce and I've noticed a pattern. The first one or two will almost always sell for the most. After that, the longer you wait between offering the same thing up again will directly influence sale price. If you list multiples of a custom within close proximity or simultaneously on the bay, they tend to sell for less.

You may want to consider slight variations in decals to create a more unique feel to each piece and potentially increase value.

Again, just thoughts based on past experience selling customs.

The issue I have is that, if I do this, the "prototype" is going to be the most expensive piece. I plan to make molds and cast the "detail" items that are going to make these vehicles unique. A pound of silicon rubber costs about $50... don't think I'd have to use a full pound of it to make the molds...but it would use a fair portion....
So once I make the 1st...the next 11 have an insignificant cost compared to the 1st.

I had not really considered going to ebay to sell them off one at a time...but I'll have to think about it.

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I think the concept is solid for multiples and like DrB said you could always paint them diferent colors for different purposes......then sell them as a set and get more bang for your buck. Like Spin said ebay is great place to gauge the value. My experience has been that sometime "lots" sell for more or as a set makes people feel like they are getting value for the money.

Now I would consider turning one into a hover jeep, or an air jeep sort on the experomental scifi type of deal. or you could sell the shells.

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Purple and green looks cool. I don't care for the blue and green. Why is it eco-warriors always look colorblind.
Eco-Warrior with the drums is a nice concept - but I think you should modify the color scheme. Also, you should include some kind of special breathing aparatus and perhaps a vacuum tube that coils up on the side and can be uncoiled to suck up sludge into the drums.

For the Drednok Jeep you should use one of your most junked up jeeps and find a way to patch missing parts (wheels?) with parts from other vehicles a la the Thunder Machine.

How about a medic jeep? Convert the back to hold Doc's stretcher and two of Lifeline's medic cases pegged onto the tail. In fact, now I want to make that. Can I buy a junk VAMP off you?

-CJack

Edit: I don't know how much they'd be worth, it'd really be dependent upon the level of detail and talent in the painting applications. I'm amazed at how much customs go for on eBay. I think you'll get your money's worth for the amount of effort you put into them.

PS II: How about an MP vehicle with a dog cage on the back? The more practical the concept, i.e. the more easily it fills a need in people's collections the more guaranteed it is to sell.

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