A few months ago, I got the kind of email that you want to get, when you are in the position I am in.
It began like so:
David,
I am putting together a demo derby car for my wife to run here at the end of August. I was wondering if you would be willing to grant me permission to paint Piranhamoose on it.
My response was:
I’m dismayed that you have not already completed said car so I can see it. This sounds like the best idea I have ever heard of.
The writer was Wondermark reader Justin R., Esq. And a heap of pictures arrived soon thereafter! Justin described the Piranhamoosification thusly:
I started with a 1991 Cadillac Brougham. A steel monster of a Cadillac that began life as the top-of-the-line model that year. The height of luxury.
We installed a small block Chevy V8 with headers out the hood, an inboard mounted fuel cell, and a semi-truck battery. Couple of safety features, then it was time for the paint.
I began by taking my favorite two images of the Emperor of the Food Chain. The hood is adapted from the picture on the T-shirt, and the trunk from Captain Pike’s Final Wish.
I first drew a simple version of your original on drafting paper, before expanding the drawings onto poster board. Then, from the poster board, I razored out stencils and used them to spray paint the outlines.
Once I layered the colors I wanted, I finished the detail with paint pens. Then I added the “gwarrhh” just for the fun of it.
The woman in some of the shots is my lovely wife and avid Piranhamoose fan. She is also the driver of this majestic beast.
That was all. Then, in the far-off distance, a sound… Was that a shrieking of metal? A bestial howl to the brackish Yukon moon? The simultaneous roar of a thousand slavering, oil-thirsty mudthusiasts, bearing witness to the ferocity of the beast that put the car back in carnage?
The pictures that followed told the whole grisly tale…
As promised, here are some “after” photos of the car. It performed in the spirit of the Piranhamoose, devouring many cars before ultimately being brought down. My wife placed sixth in a field of 22.
Thanks again. Next time it will be Sharkhawk!
Justin, please pass on congratulations to your wife for a fine performance on the field of battle, and congratulations as well to all of us, who have won a prize of sorts just by getting to see this happen. Well done, all.
Previously: Piranhamoose in brass / Piranhamoose in pumpkin / Piranhamoose in lights / Piranhamoose on your body that GLOWS IN THE DARK
Obligatory Puzzle Update: With just under three weeks remaining in the Kickstarter campaign for my Victorian jigsaw puzzles, I am doing a bit of “Viral Marketing”.