There’s so much to look at in the new Mad Max movie, from that ridiculous double-necked flame-throwing guitar to all of those terrifying spiked weapon-hurling vehicles, you’d have to watch it a dozen times to take it all in. Fury Road is just the latest film in the series to dazzle us visually, inspiring all manner of copycat creations and post-apocalyptic designs, including lethal-looking kid-sized vehicles, disaster fashion and fantasy architecture.

Mad Max Power Wheels

Maybe putting a six-year-old behind the wheel of a car covered in real metal spikes isn’t the best idea ever, but we’re still sad that this series of Mad Max-inspired Power Wheels isn’t actually real. The set is part of ThinkGeek’s annual April Fool’s Day stunt – but the site made one of its joke products into a real thing you can buy before (the Star Wars Tauntaun sleeping bag) so maybe the popularity of the movie will lead to less-lethal versions of these awesome little vehicles becoming available for purchase. The photos are fun, anyway.

Formula One x 1932 Ford 3-Window Coupe Combo

The glossy black body of a 1932 Ford 3-window couple comes together with Formula 1 aesthetics and functionality in this rendering by concept designer Aleksander of Muscle Car Invasion, who started sketching it in 2009 when the fourth Mad Max movie was first announced.

Runway Road Warriors: Post Apocalyptic Fashion

Mad Max: Fury Road didn’t have quite the same emphasis on bizarre post-apocalyptic fashion as the previous three films, which makes sense, anyway: who would spend so much time on their appearance in a world where everyone is reduced to the single instinct of survival? But the series has made a huge impact on post-apocalyptic fashion, and Fury Road echoes the dark, rough-around-the-edges futuristic style seen everywhere from high fashion runways to indie designers’ Etsy shops. From Gareth Pugh sending his models down the runway with black foreheads a la Imperator Furiosa to a striking 2013 Mad Max-inspired editorial by Harper’s Bazaar, these visuals are all over the fashion world. The works pictured here include Rick Owens, Boris Bidjan Saberi and helmet designer Devtac. Style.com has a gallery of 18 more images.

4 Architectural Visions by Justin Plunkett

Jumbled yet unfussy, made of junk yet somehow sort of minimalist, the architecture in Mad Max is all about making use of whatever materials are available in surprisingly creative ways. Capetown, South Africa-based designer Justin Plunkett embodies this aesthetic with a series of fantasy structures made by layering 3D illustrations on top of photographs he has taken in some of his home city’s most down-and-out neighborhoods.

Next Page - Click Below to Read More:
Mad For Max 17 Cars Clothing More Inspired By The Series

If you believe there’s beauty in destruction and a special kind of hope in disaster, Steve McGhee‘s art will speak to you. The Canadian illustrator’s imagination gives birth to tragedy, calamity, and adversity. These misadventures would be shockingly tragic if they ever actually occurred…but luckily for all of us, they only take place in McGhee’s mind.

Born and raised in London, Ontario, McGhee knew from an early age that he was lucky enough to have natural artistic talent. After a rather disturbing phase of designing horrifying “torture houses” as a child, the artist turned to more benign forms of art, sketching superheroes and action figures.

In college, McGhee tried out animation, but decided it wasn’t for him. He moved his focus to studying design and advertising, and it was in college that he developed his now-superb Photoshop skills. But rather than following the school’s schedule for learning the program, Steve simply sneaked into higher-level classes to learn at a faster rate.

After college, McGhee found work in design and advertising, but he never lost his taste for the darker side of life. His professional work is high-quality, but he really shines in the art he creates just for fun. The personal work he posts on his website reflects the artist’s natural talent as well as the skills he’s acquired over his many years of working.

These personal pieces frequently focus on the darker side of life, on what can go wrong at any given moment. They are visions of the post-apocalyptic world, predictions for what might happen in our future, be it near or far. They’re the worst-case scenario, the things we hope will never actually happen.

Why focus on the seemingly negative? Why spend so much energy creating art that only brings to mind the unpleasant things that most of us would rather not think about? McGhee’s answer is rather simple: it all has to do with the innocence that such tragedy can inspire.

He brings up the days following the September 11 attacks: reporters ran out of words and were simply unable to say anything more than the pictures were already saying about the unspeakable tragedy unfolding before us. In the days surrounding the attacks, we all banded together in a sort of awed silence, letting our words be replaced with a strange fellowship most of us had never before experienced. We were returned to a primal state where all we wanted was comfort and reassurance.

As an artist, McGhee hopes to inspire the same kind of innocent silence. His images of destruction aren’t particularly macabre or shocking; they simply depict moments of extremes that most of us will, thankfully, never have to live through. The digital paintings weren’t meant to inspire terror or even sadness. They are neutral speculative histories of imaginary disasters, meant to bring the viewer back to a primal state of mind where all we can do is observe.

His inspiration, according to the artist, usually comes from simply imagining something awful. He composes a disaster in his mind and imagines how it would look on television news and in the newspapers. He strives to recapture that momentary sense of collective awe that, for better or worse, always seems to punctuate moments of tragedy.

Of course, not all of McGhee’s art depicts the moment that the unthinkable happens. He creates a fair amount of art that shows the aftermath of awful things, but in a gentle and curious way. These post-apocalyptic pieces are perhaps even more arresting than those which show explosions, crashes and giant whirlpools; their matter-of-fact imagery speaks of the calm and rebirth that often follows those moments of unfathomable disaster.