The easiest way to build your dream sceneries? – Turbopads FEATURETTE
Who hasn't been there? Over the years, a few model cars have crept into the collection. A few favourite pieces that are almost impossible to part with. Some people store their treasures in boxes, drawers and the like, so that they are forgotten. Others, on the other hand, buy special display cases and dioramas so to show them off and enjoy seeing everything in their collection every time they walk past. Anyone who follows us on social media, whether Instagram, YouTube or TikTok, knows how we have designed our rooms to the maximum so that practically every millimetre is taken up by a model car.
To do this, we gave our creativity free rein and hung the models from the ceiling, using the walls, the sloping roof and even smooth surfaces. For our photos and videos, we usually use photo boxes with white or black backgrounds, depending on the model and situation. Sometimes, however, we photograph the models directly on suitable surfaces and backgrounds. These are not simply generated with Photoshop or AI, but are physically existing backgrounds. This is where so-called pads or underlays come into play.
Master of diecast photography
Honestly, you can often achieve extremely professional results with very simple means. Take these mats, for example. Whether you're shooting in a car park, on a race track, a drift course or a desert rally, the beautifully designed motifs allow you to take extremely good pictures of the right car, even with a standard mobile phone camera and a little post-processing, which are perfect for Instagram and other social media! So if someone asks us how to achieve cool pictures as cost-effectively as possible, we would definitely recommend these pads. In this case, these pads from Turbopads have the advantage that they do not reflect light at all.
After all, there is nothing worse than having to adjust the lighting so that the model car is not reflected too strongly on the underbody. Glad the TurboPads products can help out there wonderfully! These are also non-reflective, allowing you to position your mobile phone exactly as you wish to capture the angles you want. In addition, the printing options and the way in which details are rendered sharply have developed enormously. TurboPads scores highly with its ability to print materials in great detail, such as the interplay of asphalt, stone, grass and other textures. It can also print lettering with varying degrees of opacity, such as that found on the NΓΌrburgring Nordschleife, as well as manhole covers and cracks in the asphalt. With trees and a few figures, you can recreate extremely lively scenes, such as the famous Daikoku Parking Area, where the Japanese tuning scene meets in the late evening hours. There are many videos on YouTube and social media platforms showing this.
A piece of childhood
Somehow, these TurboPads remind us of our childhood. Of course, the typical street rugs were and are responsible for the fun of childhood for millions of children worldwide. Whether it was police chases, traffic chaos with metre-long traffic jams or other imaginative ideas, a children's road mat was an unforgettable experience. Another great way to build your own road network was simply with felt-tip pens and paper. We spent hours sticking our own road designs on the floor, car parks, bridges and more. In a sense, we may have grown up, but we will never lose the child in us. At least not when we come around the corner with a TurboPad and start filling the car park on our desk with model cars. Because TurboPads products can also be used as a typical desk pad for a mouse and keyboard. The mouse glides across the mat like a Japanese bullet train while we wonder whether we should put a few Hot Wheels on the car park instead of the keyboard. Ultimately, it's up to us how we want to design our workplace so that it suits to our needs and preferences the best.
What is TurboPads?
Turbopads is based in Barcelona, Spain, since 2023 and is therefore still fairly new in the collectors world. By working with many content creators, its profile is gradually increasing across various platforms. They produce all their products in-house in their own facilities, which allows them to closely monitor every step of the production process. This is also reflected in their quality, as every TurboPad that has made it into our Collectors Room has been meticulously crafted, sewn and printed flawlessly. Their passion and love for model car collecting is reflected in their products, as the motifs on the mats and backgrounds are perfectly tailored to the needs of the community. Drag strips, famous car parks, race tracks and other great motifs are absolutely perfect for us collectors and are all the more appreciated. So much so that TurboPads has grown steadily over the past two years and is now expanding internationally. TurboPads are already available in international shops and distributors, which means they can be brought to even more collectors, including enthusiasts of 1:43 and 1:18 scale models as well.
Competition stimulates business
There are now several companies offering such materials. We grew up with DreamCustoms, but that was around 2017 (time runs, it's crazy!). In addition to pads for PCs and keyboards, this company also offered diorama boxes as well. These illuminated diorama boxes are now available in their thousands on the internet, with countless motifs and designs from various manufacturers, so nowadays its literally nothing new. TurboPads also offers a wide range of other products in addition to pads. These include matching backgrounds for the mouse pads that combine perfectly with each other, such as the legendary Daikoku bridges and building sections in Japan, as well as the Miami Strip or house fronts in Detroit, but also images of nature in the snow or in the desert. They also offer traffic cones to make the dioramas even more lively, as well as merchandise such as hoodies and T-shirts, so that everyone in the neighbourhood knows that you are a proud TurboPads supporter!
Final words and personal impression
We personally recommend these mats as a cost-effective way to enhance your collection and show it off to its best advantage. If you prefer to store your models in a display case or in boxes, you can use the mat as a regular mouse pad and still place one or two models next to it. Or you can be even smarter and buy a pad for both your mouse pad and your collection, because with all these great designs, we found it incredibly difficult to limit ourselves to just a few. Our collector's heart simply says "you have to have them all for sure!"
