sad.machines

Roll out, hit the scene

Custom Era 196X

80's Joint

it takes more work to make an imperfect render, but it's more fun

Treasured Memories

I'D RATHER BE HOMELESS THAN CHROME-LESS

more of the weird dog car cause it's weirdly my comfort project thing

Lights Burn Dimmer

I can't believe Riverside is next month, can't wait to see everyone again

The newest itasha, the Big Horn Ace.

some old film shots

I need to go to another truck show again soon. Working on Ace's Big Horn is making me miss taking photos of Semis

hoss

Got an itasha idea for this Dodge Big Horn, the Sad Machines Itasha Design Studio & Chrome Shop is go

Old stuff from 2017

crazy that next year will be 10 years since the render stuff has started.

But I think that's about all. An insane 7 year story arc from a nearly abandoned project to the one that deserves perfection. I don't know if a lot of automotive artists, especially in the 3d scene have this much sentimental connection to one car, but the Artifex/Catulus Charger is definitely mine.

I've made so much new stuff, learned so much, and yet I'm contemplating completely redoing it, perfecting it. It's lead to some of my favorite shots, and I can't stress how important this one project has become. It's basically all of me, culminated into one car.

Now I don't know how much I really wanna divulge with this car as it's basically became a project of pride. How to change, grow up, express yourself, being yourself through automotive culture. Working on it has taught me a lot, let me express a lot, it's one of my most important projects.

But, in early '25 I had started to play with it again. I had an idea to use some newly created paints from my Artifex Superbia line, specifically the Catulus shade. Little did I know how much it'd spawn with this simple idea.

Actually, I had forgotten I also used it for this quick little project early in '25 of it tuckin' big wheels, inspired by various DUB and Hotwheels diecasts I had.

It'd pop up through more one offs through '23 and '24, it's actually becoming difficult to categorize how many times i've rendered this thing over the years, it's insane. But when mid '25 came around, it'd accidentally become another project, an oddly sentimental and personal one at that.

fun fact: with the original idea for Dice Roller, the Hakos Baelz itasha, I had originally started it on yet another variation of the Charger. iirc this is where the '68 grille swap idea came from. I had gotten decent into the design before I swapped it over to the much more fitting Aussie Falcon.

and yet again, it ended up creating some of my favorite works. A piece inspired by Povi's, and a classic chase scene, both done for my '23 Cartober daily renders, which are featured in my book, 93/infinity, available from yasoku publishing, yasoku.us/product/1000.... (Shameless product placement)

But it seemed like every few months, the Charger would get loaded again and experimented on. It was just a project I kept coming back to, experimenting on and usually not even saving the results as a seperate file, just render some stuff and move on.

I forgot to mention it earlier, but you never know what you create that can lead to creativity for others. In '21, one of the coolest artists I know, Povi Pullinen contacted me about using the charger for an art piece, and I happily sent over the car, and the finished result is still incredible.

Around the same time, born from the super shined street freak was something evil, Damage Inc. or the "Death Charger" an experiment on procedural rust and damage, a project meant to be just evil incarnate.

Even 2 years on, more tweaking, experimenting, new colors, it was becoming a test bed and even more infinite fun.

But even after it was done, I kept finding myself coming back to it, new paint, new wheels, just playing with it and experimenting. It was fun to load up and tweak, find something new and creative with it, despite the thoughts of "it's too simple, you need to do more to be better"

But looking at it, I'm so glad this thing came to be. It's one of my favorites, even today and still gets reposted across Facebook every now and then, which is always funny. Having it completed, I started on a lot of new projects, and always felt like this car was a huge turning point.

I pushed through it with support from many of my friends, and the car was shaping up, almost completed. I had tried some new stuff, like the wheelie pose (something I wouldn't actually do for another 3 years) It felt good, despite feeling "this isn't a major project, are you even good at this?"