Custom Pete 389 - Now I'm Just Showing Off

I have been so focused on designing new truck models over the past couple of years, that I decided to take a step back and look at the finer details of trucks in general, and find ways to make my existing designs better.  I have already shared some of those ideas here on my blog, and now I thought I would get fancy and have some fun with my Peterbilt 389.  I'm not a guy that really appreciates some of the extreme mods that truck owners make to their rigs, however, I know I can find some room in my collection for at least a few custom rigs of my own.  

This rendering doesn't do this rig justice, but that is all I have at the moment.  Once I get this printed, I will use styrene to cover the space between the frame rails, add some nice straight pipes like many of my other models, and a nice paint job to finish it off.  A few details I want to note here are: the tall sunvisor, the rear fenders, and the custom rear bumper with shorty mud flaps, and of course the stretched frame.  The fenders and bumper will be separate details added to the wheel sprue, so they can be painted and added after painting.  

That takes me to my next design project.  After designing this custom rear bumper including mudflaps, I decided that making a standard set of mudflaps that could be printed would likely be feasible.  The key is to have these delicate items printed on a separate sprue so that they don't break off of the larger components between printing and finishing.  I will be working on a standard "rear" very soon to be added to all of my existing trucks.  That includes horizontal brackets, and maybe taillights, all in one detail component that can be printed, painted, and applied to any truck.  Yeah, I know that someone else makes etched details like this, but what's the fun in that?  

One last item before I close.  I have a long list of models that I would really like to design, and I plan to get to them over the next several months and years.  Like this custom 389, I start dreaming about separate doors that could be assembled in an "open" position, or how about a tilted hood with a Cat V8 to show off?  The thing that gives us 3d designer guys a leg up on everyone else, is that the sky is the limit of what can be done in N scale.  It all depends on how creative we want to be, and how much time we want to invest in a single model.  Ok that's it for now.