writes:I've been collecting 1:64 scale toy cars for many years, with the vague intention of gaming with them someday. Then my five-year-old nephew comes over, finds my hoard, plays with them until they break, and gives them back to me. 
Finally, I got around to actually painting one of them.
Most toy cars require modification for gaming purposes, to add weapons and possibly armor, but I selected one that came with plenty of weapons – the Hot Wheels Sting Rod II. You can usually pick up Hot Wheels cars like this one for $1 USD or less at major retailers and dollar stores.
I checked online, and found that this toy car has been produced in 15 different variants over the years. Mine is the original 2014 edition, yellow with black stripes, though mine has different wheel covers than the one pictured above.
I flipped the model over and drilled out the rivets, breaking the toy car down into its components: metal body, clear plastic window piece, grey plastic interior piece (both the cockpit and the front machineguns), chromed plastic piece (side missiles, front bumper, saw blade in back), and plastic wheels and wheelcovers on wire axles. The soft plastic missile rack on the back comes off by very carefully prying the metal brackets apart (later models of this toy have a different arrangement for the missile rack).
To keep things simple, I chose to use as much of the original paintjob as I could. I also chose to 'tint' the windows, as 'glass' windows seemed out of place for a fighting vehicle, and tinted windows 'might' be armored. I also chose to go for a matte finish rather than toy-car glossy.
As much as possible, I painted the parts individually before reassembly. I did some touch-up on the body, where the original decals were sloppy. I painted the rear lights red, and blackened the indents on the back deck (which turned out to be hard to see once the missile rack is in place!). There are also missiles on the underside of the car, which I painted, but which are not visible on the finished car! I chose to go with a white-and-red scheme for the missiles, matching the red on the car markings, but perhaps too toy-like.
I saved myself some aggravation by just gluing the wheels back in place (they don't roll any more). Then I based the model, so nobody would be tempted to roll the car on its wheels!
Here's how it turned out:
Everything is matte finish except the windows, which I glossed so they looked more like… windows. Super-advanced armored windows. (But the gloss coat has some glitches, I'm not good at brush-on glossing…)
Maybe I should have glossed the rear lights, too? You can also see the saw blade in this picture. I tried to get a wash into the 'seams' on the car body, but didn't get much of an effect.
The triple machineguns are now metallic rather than gray plastic, and I assumed that the bumps on the front bumper were more missiles and painted them red!
The markings are from the original toy paintjob. All I did was touch-up some places where the stripes ran too long or too short. 'Imai 34' is apparently a reference to the toy designer.
I haven't chosen a ruleset or come up with any stats yet. The car's armament includes the triple machineguns, two rockets in the front bumper, three rockets on each side (they must somehow launch sideways to miss hitting their own car!), the back rack with three more missiles, the rear-mounted sawblade, and I believe there were four more rockets embedded in the chassis!