| Chris Walker
~ It was
a long journey to get where I am today. Almost surreal.
I was born in Southern California, and grew up in my later school years in
Florida until I turned 18. Most of what I am started there. Between
cars and art, I was hooked. Florida seemed to be the right place
for my creative outlet.
I was always a "doodler" in school.
If I wasn't drawing sketches on my notebooks I had my hand in airbrushing and drawing
on everything else. Later on, I did a short stint
as a freelance artist. It was fun. I was also attracted to the custom
vehicles
and muscle cars that model car companies and Hot Wheels had to offer. I
would pick them up from time to time. It all started to come together
there. After highschool I joined the Army and got involved
in many different things but the custom painting and creative desire
for art never really left me. |
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In
1989 and well into the 90’s, I got hooked big time on Mini-trucks and
various custom cars. I had to
have the wildest and most colorful vehicle imaginable. I knew right then, that if I ever
wanted something to look REALLY HOT, I was going to have to learn to do it
myself. So I got a job at a paint and body shop, and they taught me
everything I needed to know about painting.
Pretty soon it got to the point that if I wasn’t customizing my real
cars, I was building custom models and painting toy cars. I just had
to be customizing. By this time I was able to do my own wild custom
paint jobs like you see on the left. About this time, I jumped
with both feet into Hot Wheels collecting after seeing those little
custom gems hanging in the toy isles.
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Some of my influences came from all walks of life and all facets of
the craft be it design, full custom, or graphics seen on various
things I was interested in. Chip Foose, Craig Fraser, Daryl Starbird, Ed Roth, Von
Dutch, Von Franco, H.R. Giger (Alien designer), Rick Baker (F/X
designer), and I could go on and on with this list. What sparked
my interest early on was the various designs on skateboards, and
caused me to collect them and moved into the 80's BMX and Freestyle
bikes. What
got me going full tilt customizing Hot Wheels was seeing the work of
David Chang and Jimmy Chavez. Jimmy did more to help out than
anyone I knew at that time. Attitude is everything and he was always
positive. I was already doing a few things on my own, but I discovered their work right after I got the internet around 1999. To
me they were amazing. The first thing I thought was that I finally
found somebody like me. Somebody that
had the same passion for creativity that I had towards customizing a
toy car. There are many others I like as well, but Dave really stuck
out and grabbed my attention. He was innovative and original in a time where it was not
mainstream at all. Not to mention that I LOVE flames. |
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I
worked my way to the point of entering as many different customs contests
as I could. It was too much fun not too. Now, many
different trophies and accolades later, the enjoyment is still very
much there. When I am not involved in designing graphics, packaging,
or prototyping other designs, I can be found cutting up a
car, painting something somewhere, or working on full sized cars or
BMX bikes. You just never know what it
will be from day to day. Just to keep doing them and expand into
other areas. I just hope they will continue to put a smile on
someone’s face like they do mine. It’s always a pleasure to hear
somebody likes what you are doing. You can keep checking here to see pics of the newest stuff as I build it. Thanks & I hope you
enjoy! |
     
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