In a relatively short time, Chris Walker changed the world of customs through an artists perspective and things haven't been the same.  Originating the Code-3 Signature market.  Before that, customizers would only sell wild custom creations themselves, but other various runs were created for someone else to sell.    He was the first to sell "code-3" custom cars directly from his website straight to the customer base himself, bypassing the "middle-man".  Thus changing the game.  His work has been seen all over the globe at Diecast Conventions around the world, at the Peterson Automotive Museum in LA, in your local toy isle, the Shelby Automotive Museum, and even Chip Foose's garage. 

 

Chris Walker ~ It was a long journey to get where I am today.  Almost surreal.   I was born in Southern California, and grew up in my later school years in Florida until I turned 18. Most of what I am started there. Between cars and art, I was hooked.  Florida seemed to be the right place for my creative outlet.

   I was always a "doodler" in school.  If I wasn't drawing sketches on my notebooks I had my hand in airbrushing and drawing on everything else. Later on, I did a short stint as a freelance artist. It was fun. I was also attracted to the custom vehicles and muscle cars that model car companies and Hot Wheels had to offer. I would pick them up from time to time. It all started to come together there.   After highschool I joined the Army and got involved in many different things but the custom painting and creative desire for art never really left me.

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  In 1989 and well into the 90’s, I got hooked big time on Mini-trucks and various custom cars. I had to have the wildest and most colorful vehicle imaginable. I knew right then, that if I ever wanted something to look REALLY HOT, I was going to have to learn to do it myself. So I got a job at a paint and body shop, and they taught me everything I needed to know about painting.
Pretty soon it got to the point that if I wasn’t customizing my real cars, I was building custom models and painting toy cars. I just had to be customizing. By this time I was able to do my own wild custom paint jobs like you see on the left.  About this time, I jumped with both feet into Hot Wheels collecting after seeing those little custom gems hanging in the toy isles.

 

Some of my influences came from all walks of life and all facets of the craft be it design, full custom, or graphics seen on various things I was interested in Chip Foose, Craig Fraser, Daryl Starbird, Ed Roth, Von Dutch, Von Franco, H.R. Giger (Alien designer), Rick Baker (F/X designer), and I could go on and on with this list. What sparked my interest early on was the various designs on skateboards, and caused me to collect them and moved into the 80's BMX and Freestyle bikes.   What got me going full tilt customizing Hot Wheels was seeing the work of David Chang and Jimmy Chavez.  Jimmy did more to help out than anyone I knew at that time. Attitude is everything and he was always positive.  I was already doing a few things on my own, but I discovered their work right after I got the internet around 1999. To me they were amazing. The first thing I thought was that I finally found somebody like me. Somebody that had the same passion for creativity that I had towards customizing a toy car. There are many others I like as well, but Dave really stuck out and grabbed my attention.  He was innovative and original in a time where it was not mainstream at all. Not to mention that I LOVE flames.

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I worked my way to the point of entering as many different customs contests as I could.  It was too much fun not too.  Now, many different trophies and accolades later, the enjoyment is still very much there. When I am not involved in designing graphics, packaging, or prototyping  other designs, I can be found cutting up a car, painting something somewhere, or working on full sized cars or BMX bikes.  You just never know what it will be from day to day.  Just to keep doing them and expand into other areas. I just hope they will continue to put a smile on someone’s face like they do mine. It’s always a pleasure to hear somebody likes what you are doing. You can keep checking here to see pics of the newest stuff as I build it.  Thanks & I hope you enjoy!