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I was first introduced to Digimodding well before I even had an internet connection. I purchased a car magazine which had a free car CD with it. This CD had about a hundred low resolution GIF images, and as I was a great fan of cars I opened them up in Microsoft Paint and looked through them all.. as sad that sounds, I then began to draw on them with the paint tool.. and add spoilers etc. All rather poor quality, but at the age of 14 odd and using Paint what did I expect?
I was then introduced to Paint Shop Pro by a friend of mine. It was an old version, one that came free with a computer magazine I think. It was leagues ahead of Paint, and allowed me to be able to change colours, tint lights and other different things. I thought I was great at it.. how wrong I was. I was then introduced to the internet around the same time that I bought myself a remote control car. Whilst owning the car and encountering problems with it, I found help from the HPI Forums, and on that site I realised a bunch of guys had started a thread on Digimodding! I was amazed that other people actually did it, and I showed off my rather poor work to them. The thread grew to be huge.. and they held regular competitions. This drove me on to improve, try different styles and eventually use Photoshop! For me, it spiraled on from then on and I have done it ever since continually trying to improve and enjoy every minute of it. So thanks to the guys on the HPI forum, especially Kazi.
But what caused the big boom? What is the great appeal? I guess its due to that fact that you can modify a car as much as possible without any expense - the only limit been your imagination. This is great for anyone who has a passion for modified cars and even for people who want to try before they buy, to see what their car looks like before they carry out the mods. It's popular with kids too, who don't own a car and want to have a stab at modifying themselves. A large factor in the increase in popularity is down to the concise tutorials sites that have been set up to help beginners.. Way back in the popular days of Photoshop Junkie, people with little or no Photoshop experience where knocking out pretty damn good works with the help of step by step tutorials.. and that made me slightly bitter as I had to learn the hard way!
Around that time Digimods.co.uk was launched. This was after several years of been called www.virtual-modifying.da.ru and then www.virtual-modifying.co.uk and hosted on free web space. Bandwidth was a great issue, so the relaunch on better space featured plenty of tutorials and other resources. With the help of a few magazine features Digimods was successfully born. To help the hobby grow, I set about sharing some more of my techniques and creating more tutorials. A forum was set up on free Proboards hosting and a huge community grew (of which dm still has). The forums have moved about several times.. infact the community are like gypsies. we set up forums where we can find web space. At the moment, we are kindly hosted by Paul, on digimods.e-visionit.co.uk. It isn't hosted on Digimods space due to heavy bandwidth issues..
After many many very lucky media features, the website has grown to what it is today, and hopefully it will evolve further. I'm quite taken aback by how popular dm has become, and very proud. In some way I like to think that Digimods.co.uk has fueled the Digimodding culture in the UK.. but maybe that's just me been big headed. After many years experience in this game, I think I have seen it all and recently, even with lots of highs and lows, the hobby has gone from strength to strength. It's amazing to see the skill out there nowadays, people come and go, but the odd few stick at it, and produce awesome works of art. Just as people come and go, and as day turns to night, new trends pop up constantly. If you had asked me what brushing was two years ago, I'd have looked at you funny. People in the hobby have the amazing ability to be able to draw, free hand, their own body kits, add reflections and make them look totally real. Maybe it's because I'm not great at brushing, but I tend to favour good old Copy and Pasting... but each to their own I guess. The big dilemma that any Digimodder comes across when copy and pasting is the lack of high res body kit and wheel images. The recent subscription charges applied to CarandModel proved to be a big blow to the community, but people have managed to find new sources for parts, and the kinder people have provided free donor stores etc.
What is happening in the future then? I've heard some people commenting on the fact that they think it is becoming boring. Many people, including myself, seem to have some kind of passion for this hobby and will stick at it in the long run. New cars are released every week, and new trends are too, so who knows.. but I'm addicted to it. As for Digimods.co.uk, watch this space... Pete Email |
