Brown Trout Pinewood Derby Car

[MathFish]

Last year I made a Brook Trout Pinewood Derby car for the outlaw class that my son's Cub Scout troop holds to accommodate overzealous parents. I was really happy with how the car turned out and I posted photos of it on the forum last year.

Brookie Pinewood Derby Car

In that post, I said that I would attempt to make a brown trout for this year's outlaw class - and today was derby car construction day for my son and I. For a model for the Brookie car, I found a painting of a brook trout on Google and went from there. For this Brown Trout car, I decided to model it after the first wild brown trout that I caught at Meadow Run this year.

First Wild Brown

I am attaching a photo of that particular trout below for comparison with the derby car that I made today. I made some tweaks to last year's design and I spent a little more time and effort into the painting of this year's car. I didn't go too crazy with trying to match the spot pattern or the parr marks, but I am really pleased with the way it turned out. I still have to spray it with a clear coat, add some weight to it (Outlaw cars can weigh up to 10 oz) and mount the wheels to it, but the hardest part of the build is over.

Unfortunately last year there were only 3 people competing in the Outlaw Class - a 4 year old girl, a 6 year old girl and me - a 40 year old bearded guy... So I did this build just for kicks - I don't think that I will race it - unless some of the other dads decide to build some outlaws...

This year though, I won't make a promise to build a rainbow trout car for next year - my son is bridging over to Boy Scouts so this brown trout was kind of my last hurrah for derby cars...

Thanks for looking and Happy New Year to everyone!

 

[Dave_W]

Hey, that's really neat.

I think you nailed the brown trout. I've painted a lot of brown and brook trout and browns are more difficult IMO. Yours looks really good!

 

[MathFish]

I agree completely about the brown being more difficult to paint. I thought it would be easier than a brook trout, but then I started to paint and found out that it was much more difficult than I anticipated!

Thanks for the compliment!

 

[steveo27]

Nice!

 

[ryansheehan]

Is that car stock-ed? Sorry, I couldn't stop myself. Thats some very impressive work!

 

[PennKev]

The brown trout car looks better than most mounts and repro-mounts.

Seriously.

 

[nomad_archer]

That looks great.

 

[dc410]

Very nice work!

 

[MathFish]

PennKev you are too kind!

Last year after I made the brook trout car I thought I might take a crack at wood carving some trout and I researched some wood carving websites for info. There are some really skilled artisans out there who do great trout reproductions. But most of the carvings that I came across were of large fish.

The fact that you think it's a good repro is that I suspect that it might be easier to make a more accurate carving and painting of a young trout as opposed to an older larger trout. But I don't know...

Things have been too busy as of late to get into wood carving, but I think I may give it a go someday down the road. I used a coping saw, some rasps, an orbital palm sander and plain old sandpaper to make the form of the fish. The painting part took more time for me to do than the carving. I just mixed colors using trial and error till I got what I thought would work and I just tried different brushes and tactics till I got what I thought was close to the effect I was going for... I'm not a trained artist and it wasn't easy - I attribute the result to my perseverance.

Thank you all for the compliments.

 

[RCFetter]

They really look good Mathfish. Nice work.

 

[PennKev]

MathFish wrote:
PennKev you are too kind!

Last year after I made the brook trout car I thought I might take a crack at wood carving some trout and I researched some wood carving websites for info. There are some really skilled artisans out there who do great trout reproductions. But most of the carvings that I came across were of large fish.

I don't think anyone will ever confuse it for a real mounted trout with wheels attached, but I do think that it's aesthetics are much better than most mounts. Mounts and repros have the problem of not quite being good art and not quite being a good replica unless done by the most skilled taxidermist/artist. A carved piece like this car, on the other hand, does not need to look exactly like a real trout, it can look like a painted, carved, wooden trout. It's sort of like the flies we use. most will never never be confused for a real insect or baitfish, but a well tied fly just looks good and looks "right."

This car just looks "right." The colors are nicely done and the mouth and eyes are captured well.

Kev