My Custom Hotwheels Minions …Now Have Competition

Not long after completing my Hot Wheels take on Minion Kevin, Stuart & Bob I learned that @HotwheelsOfficial were releasing their own officially licensed Despicable Me™ Minion Hot Wheels car. Now I am in no position to judge but. No wait sorry, scratch that! I’m totally in a position to judge… and I judge the following Hotwheels take on Minion Stuart to be … up there with the latest Minion movie, Despicable Me 3.*

*If you’ve seen the movie then you understand what I really think of the above vehicle. If you haven’t seen the movie then here’s my review: “It’s pretty lame, bordering on shit”
Did he just? #OHIWENTTHERE

The Casting Mattel *SHOULD Have Used

When I first laid eyes on the newly released RIGHEAT casting from Hot Wheels I instantly saw a Minion. In actually can’t see anything BUT… even the roof is the same Minion yellow and that ‘mouth’ even has a hint of a smile. The final part however that ‘seals the deal’ for me are the headlights and grill that meet the wheel arches – the wheel arches making perfect overall bands and the headlights in the perfect spot to be the buckles that hold the overalls on.

Do you see it now? Bet you can’t unsee it 😉

No-one at Hot Wheels saw it that’s for sure, because when they decided to release their own version it was…not as good as mine, I reckon anyway 😉

In the Beginning There Was… Just Minion Stuart.

Funnily enough, it wasn’t just Mattel who decided to make a Minion Stuart first – with my initial idea only being applied to one Rig Heat casting*
*Ironically for a pegwarmer I only found 1 casting and had to search 4 different stores to find the three more required to make two more Minions.

Creating Minion Stuart was actually one of the easier customs I have done, namely because it came with the new (very tasty) deep dish mainline wheels. This meant no wheelswap was required – and with a metal base that was a huge relief! The casting itself is plastic which meant drilling it out was super easy. It also meant that I could use acrylic detailing paint without needing to apply undercoat or prepare the surface in any way, shape or form. #WINNING

Introducing Minion Stuart

But Wait, There’s More* [Minions]

*No free steak knives sorry* 
The response from sharing Minion Stuart on Instagram and Facebook was overwhelming and as the demand for additional minions grew I realised the masses had spoken, and spoken most righteously! It was time for Minion Stuart to be joined by his friends Kevin and Bob – and that meant finding more Righeat castings, 3 more in fact.

Minion Kevin & Minion Bob

Making Minion Bob was basically like making a carbon copy of Stuart – excepting for the fact I needed two eyeballs not one. Luckily I have been customising for some time now and as a customiser I see EVERYTHING as a potential part. This meant that last year when my kids were given some Megablocks brand minion lego I quickly nabbed the removable eyeballs from any and all minions they had in the set (after they got bored of them of course) and put them into my ‘drawer-o-randomness’

Minion Kevin however was going to require a little more work but again the nature of the Righeat casting meant this was relatively easy to do. Creating Kevin and his taller head was accomplished by simply painting a windscreen in the same yellow as the body and extending the rear pillars of the original roof piece to accommodate the new height.
It actually turned out better than I thought with the bottom of the painted windscreen creating a mischievous smile on Minion Kevin’s face.

He’s a sneaky one this Minion Kevin…

The results speak for themselves :)…. and it is with the greatest of pleasure that I formally introduce you to the My Custom Hotwheels take on Minion’s Stuart, Kevin & Bob

Meet Stuart, Kevin & Bob