We’ve all seen the car driving down the street with a garbage bag duct taped over a broken window. As dangerous (and hilarious) as that may be, it is by no means the limit of amateur automotive engineering ingenuity. These pictures, from the always-hilarious thereifixedit.com, show just how creative people can be when it comes to making changes to their vehicles. From the hilariously haphazard to the creatively upcycled, these insane vehicle mods are perfect examples of do-it-yourself gone wild.
When you’re moving and you just can’t spare the $29.95 for a U-Haul, what can you do? Maybe…shove way more into the car than the car can possibly handle, and then duct tape a bunch of boxes onto the top? Yep, that sounds good.
For many car buyers, choosing between a sedan and a pickup can be a difficult decision. But this car owner decided to take matters into his own hands by combining a Volvo, a pickup bed, and some mad woodworking skills. Note the nice, even, sturdy-looking construction.
This truck owner, however, doesn’t seem to have the same level of car mod talent. This wooden truck bed leaves so many questions unanswered: where did the truck’s real bed go? Who thought constructing a new one out of wood was a good idea? Is it supposed to be an environmental statement? Is that even street legal?
When you really, really love your car, it can be hard to admit that it’s at the end of its life. But when it’s held together with trash bags, duct tape, bungee cords and what appears to a flannel shirt, it might be time to let it go to that great parking lot in the sky.
Apparently the load was a little heavy on the back end of this van, and maybe the bumper started scraping the pavement. Rather than, say, fix whatever is wrong with the frame that’s making the back end sag, this resourceful car owner decided to put some teeny-tiny wheels under the bumper. Problem solved!
Spare tires are expensive. But with some ingenuity and a few of the odds and ends that everyone has lying around their garage, there’s no obstacle that can’t be overcome. Hopefully the guy riding in the back of the hatchback is wearing his bungee-cord seat belt.
We may kid about these modifications and temporary solutions, but some of them actually serve a purpose, albeit a funny one. This shopping cart bike was concocted by Ryan McFarland and can solve the irritating problem of where to put your groceries when you go to the supermarket on your bike. If you’re itching to make one yourself, there are instructions here.
If you’ve got access to the equipment necessary to weld a whole new side panel onto your minivan, why not? It’s cheaper than buying a new van, and it’s not like it’s completely unsafe or anything, right?
Appliance delivery, like spare tires, is not cheap. You can accomplish basically the same thing with a car, a dolly, and a friend or two willing to ride in the trunk all the way home.
Who said you can’t put a trailer hitch on the inside of a hatchback? This insightful car owner knows that you can haul anything if you just put your mind to it.
At first this looked like a wood-burning stove in the back of a van. But on closer inspection, it appears to be some sort of creative vehicle recycling. We don’t know what it’s supposed to be, but kudos to the creator for using existing materials that might have otherwise gone to the junkyard.
Motorcycle seats can be very uncomfortable. So what’s a biker with a bad back to do? This looks like a pretty great compromise between car and motorcycle.
Motorcycles have another small problem for those who enjoy hauling things: very little storage space. There are, of course, trailers made just for motorcycles, but where’s the fun in that? This crazy modification turns the motorcycle into a tricycle, and the car hood into the awesomest trailer ever.
Amazingly, none of these beautiful pieces of art are photographs. They were all made with various methods, but all of them are part of the photorealism genre. The movement got its start in the US in the 1960s and 1970s, but since then, it’s taken on new forms. Some artists prefer to work in paints, some with computer graphics, and some use materials that are a little more unusual. Whatever media they use, these 10 artists elevate photorealism to new heights with their monumental talent.
Juan Francisco Casas
Believe it or not, these incredible pictures were all made with ballpoint pens. Juan Francisco Casas‘ ultra-realistic pen drawings have been causing double-takes all over the internet. Casas works on huge canvases, using nothing more than a blue Bic pen to recreate candid photos of playful young people. The Spanish artist has exhibited his remarkable art all over the world.
Dru Blair
This particular painting has been surrounded by controversy and disbelief as it’s made its way around the internet. It’s so realistic and so finely detailed that many people had trouble believing it is, in fact, a painting. But Dru Blair, the artist responsible, is a well-known photo-realistic artist. He began the piece for a class, but finished it later on his own. His amazing airbrush art has been featured in hundreds of advertisements, magazines and book covers. Aviation art is a favorite subject for the artist, and his first aviation painting, “Power,” is the highest selling aviation print in the world. If you’re interested in learning this style, Dru Blair runs the Blair School of Art in Blair, South Carolina.
Alyssa Monks
Alyssa Monks describes her work as portraying “simultaneous empathy and detachment,” which seems an accurate assessment. Her incredibly detailed oil paintings usually show unguarded moments, but with a certain amount of distance. Much of her work features water, which she renders perfectly. Monks is currently an instructor at both Montclair State University and and the New York Academy of Art.
Bert Monroy
After spending 20 years in the advertising industry, Bert Monroy ventured into digital art on his own. He has used pretty much every commercially available digital art program to experiment and create some unbelievably realistic pieces. When asked why he creates photo-realistic images rather than just, say, taking a picture, Monroy points out that the process is what thrills him, not necessarily the final product. Bert Monroy is an accomplished teacher, writer and lecturer, and part of the Photoshop Hall of Fame.
Eric Zener
Eric Zener creates worlds of gentle escapism, both for himself and for the viewer. While they do show very deliberate moments in time, they are infused with the temporarily carefree attitude we adopt when swimming, lazing in the sun, or simply resting for a moment. What’s even more incredible is that Zener’s art is created not with a camera, but with paint. The painstaking detail he puts into each and every painting perfectly balances the sweet, airy nature of the subjects.
David Kassan
David Kassan’s life-size paintings set the soft and vulnerable human form against gritty urban backgrounds to create images that are, according to the artist, both real and abstract. Kassan combines a tender look at the subject with a detachment that allows the viewer to make up their own mind about both the subject and the image as a whole. Though he cites many realists as inspiration, Kassan’s work has a singular aching beauty that is all his own.
Ralph Goings
Is there beauty in a crusty old ketchup bottle? What about a box of donuts or a tired old hot dog stand? Ralph Goings has been finding the beauty in everyday objects for more than 40 years. His unique brand of realism puts mundane objects into an extraordinary light by highlighting their every curve and corner, and examining the way the light plays on their surfaces. When Goings joined the photorealism movement of the 1960s and 1970s, he was pleased to note how much his art seemed to disturb some people who didn’t believe that his exceptionally realistic paintings were really art.
Wayne Forrest
Wayne Forrest, known to the DeviantArt community as GMesh, turns to the internet for inspiration. When he sees an image that catches his eye, he recreates it himself using programs like Illustrator, Photoshop, Premiere, Indesign, and Swift3D. Forrest began working with CG after his retirement from the Canadian military, and he has obviously dedicated himself to learning his art. His digital paintings show the level of work he has put into learning all about computer graphics.
Diego Gravinese
Diego Gravinese’s work is breathtaking, and not only because of its realism. His work displays a gentle understanding of his subjects, an intimacy that is infused with playfulness. The series of three paintings above show the process the Argentinian artist went through to arrive at a spectacular end product. His oil and acrylic paintings are definitely not to be missed; down to every last detail, they portray a level of care and amazing skill that are hard to find in modern painters.
Adam Beane
Though he doesn’t work in paint or computer graphics, Adam Beane’s work most definitely deserves a mention. The commercial sculptor uses his talents to create eerily realistic tiny versions of famous people, which are then used to make action figures. Looking at photographs of the unpainted sculptures in Beane’s hand feels like looking at creepy Photoshop jobs with Beane acting as the hand of God. What’s most amazing about his work is that he’s only been sculpting since 2002.
This image captures the “wolf’s great agility and strength”, says Rodríguez. It also implies a relationship with humans as the wolf jumps effortlessly over the fence into a farmer’s enclosure. A custom-built infrared trap was used to snap the wolf as it leapt into the air.
Different cells in the retina beam contrary classes of data or “lines” to the brain. These lines encrypt information about a physical objects size, clearness, brightness and position in the field of vision.“Occasionally one line convinces the opposite, and you interpret the grin, occasionally others take over and you do not catch the grin,” tells Luis Martinez Otero, a neuroscientist at Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, Spain, who carried out the subject along with Diego Alonso Pablos.
Driving away mosquitoes is a major concern with all range of people and there are various traditional methods of doing this such as mosquito repellent, liquid vaporizer, aerosol and finally mosquito net, all with different harmful and inconvenient attributes. The Mint Mosquito Repellent is an innovative substitute of all forms of mosquito drivers keeping the consumer’s preconceived idea intact that a mosquito repellent should always be green. The repellent doesn’t require lighting up with fire but everyone will be able to tell from a first glimpse that it is a mosquito repellent.
The concept comprises a metal plate built with high conductive and heat resin metal where the essence cord should be placed and a low-voltage PTC thermistor has been used to make it more secured than other electric repellents. The termistor contains an over-current protection fuse that prevents fire way before it is probable to occur. Mint Mosquito Repellent offers the advantage of customizing the amount of aroma oil as the user’s desire. Moreover, you can use other natural substances such as Eucalyptus oil, glass oil and lavender oil. The MMR is completely safe to use with infants and children, and has no harmful chemical processes like other conventional repellents.
Designer : Mintpass
Nature is an innovative ceramic planter that has the ability to grow a range of herbs and flowers. The design is inspired from the shapes and patterns found in nature, which can be revealed from its name. The concept comprises several openings like blossoms with various forms, and the plants are placed according to their root size, topmost opening is designed to make room for plants with deeper roots. The planter features a complex mold with six parts and seventeen post-molding cuts. All the pieces are carefully cast, finished by hand and glazed in Portland, Oregon. Drainage of the system is controlled by the three holes on the bottom. The planter is 18” tall and 22” wide, and is available in three colors, gray, white and yellow, and is ideal for both indoor and outdoor use.
Designer : Dominic D’Andrea and Tram Pham
Cojoy is a bicycle concept for two persons, inspired from the dual paddle boat along with an operational wheelchair, and is designed to offer sheer fun for the bicycle riders. Each rider is designed to control one wheel separately of the bicycle. The seat angle of the concept is totally adjustable by using the handle according to the need of individual riders. It runs straight when two riders pedal at the same speed and when it requires to turn, the outer rider will ride faster than the inside rider. Riding this bicycle requires a good communication, cooperation and a minimum skill.
Designer : Pengtao Yu
The Mosquito is a lightweight and attractive concept bike that is designed to get around within the city in a whole new way. This E-bike features electric motor which is powered by lithium batteries which can be charged fully for only 50p. Once charged fully, the Mosquito can run about 60 km at a top speed of 50 km/h. The bike features a removable center pole that has made the ergonomic design of the bike even easier to get onto it without affecting the stats and handling of the bike. The frame cover has made using different materials such as woo, plastic and carbon fiber. Most of the parts of Mosquito are available at traditional bike stores which minimize the maintenance and repairing cost.
Designer : Tom Mudra and Hans-Tobias Schicktanz
