What not to do when making a Batmobile

    Once upon a long time ago, I was browsing Pinterest (Or something equivalent to a-place-for-artists-to-steal-ideas-from-artists) and I came across a cute upcycle project (See >here<, or >here<, or >here<, or... you get the point).  I promptly re-pinned so that I too, could steal the idea later, and then I totally forgot about it.

    Fast forward a few years to when I have my very own child and would love to provide their first bat-mobile. My dad comes home with a Cozy Coupe car to sell in our second hand shop. I obviously wasn't going to waste any time. The world had spoken.  That was the day I was to steal the Bat-mobile project.

    I've never done anything like this before, and I obviously didn't look up the instructions, because I'm a completely competent stubborn person.  Thus, I had to iron out the kinks all by myself, through various mistakes that has costed me money and time.  I know that everyone reading this wishes to one day create their child's very own bat-mobile (Who are we kidding? We're trying to grasp at the last string of our own inner child.  If only I could fit into the cozy coupe...) so when that time comes, I want you to think back to this blog post and not do all the things that I did.

    Let's start.  The first thing you're going to not want to do is not clean the batmobile.  This means that when you stand back and take a look at it right before you begin, and you think "Damn, that's a lot of mud all up in this shit" and then immediately think "The Windex is all the way in the garage." and then decide that you don't need to wash it, then just stop right there. Turn around.  Go get the Windex and a rag, and clean the cozy coup/batmobile.  Because when you start spraying your spray paint all over that bad boy, you're going to wish you had washed it from the get go. And then you're going to wash it anyway.  And then the black spray paint is going to smudge everywhere cause you're an impatient mess.  And this brings me to my second point.

    Do not use regular spray paint.  I was so excited to begin the Bat-mobile that I didn't even consider driving to the hardware store and checking out their spray paint selection.  I got a ratty old can from the garage (Next to the Windex and rag that I had earlier decided was too far to retrieve.) of black spray paint and started spraying the muddy bat-mobile.  It was looking pretty good, even after I'd smudged it all with my rag and windex.  But I couldn't stop thinking to myself "Damn, don't they make spray paint for plastic stuff? Its 2013, man." and kept spraying.  It also began to rain right about that point.  I ran my bat-mobile onto the deck and out of the rain.  It rained for about 3 days straight (Thanks Montreal), and by the end of the storms the cozy coup/bat-mobile had already started to chip.  I surrendered to my stubborn ways and googled a quick tutorial on how to make a bat-mobile. What do you know? They make spray paint for plastic.  I ran out and bought some, but who's to say if "plastic bonding" spray paint will bond to regular spray paint.  One can only hope.

    While we're at it, don't just jump into the project without planning something.  If I had sat down for even a nanosecond to think about what this project entailed or even how I was going to carry it out, I'd probably already be finished.  Halfway through spray painting it black, I realized that I also wanted to spray some parts yellow.  The parts that I intended to spray yellow were now black.  I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with spray paint, but yellow on black doesn't go over very well.  It was back to the drawing board.  I went through a few kinks like this.  I decided that since I was about to pull my hair out, I was just going to spray paint the whole thing black.  I could worry about the yellow after.

    Finally, don't use vinyl sticker to create your stencil.  It seemed like a great idea at the time.  I had even put some thought into it! I cut out the batman emblem in the vinyl sticker and spray painted the yellow over it so that it would peel off beautifully and - VOILA! My batmobile would be completed.  Unfortunately the jokes on me.  Even though I had used my trusty "bonds-to-plastic-not-to-spray-paint" spray paint, when I pulled off the sticker, a bunch of nice big chunks of black spray paint came off to reveal the dreaded red undercoat of the cozy coupe.  Oyoyoy.

    Alas, my cozy coupe batmobile sits on my deck awaiting me to finish it.  I'll return to it eventually (Shortly, because it has been purchased by someone) and this time, I'll be relying on the internet to guide me through the process.  At least I did something right.  Check out these killer rims.

    Interested in doing your own Cozy Coupe upcycle? Visit this blogger to see how she did it (And similarly seemed to struggle on it too! Phew, I'm not alone.)