For my only sole 3D modelling project for the year I was given a toy car in which I needed to produce a piece of digital line art of and also 3D model to a professional standard because I was going to have the entire academic year in order to do so.
To start with I had to collect some photos of the different sides of the car. These would become the photos I base my line art off and also use as my image planes for modelling.
I used a camera fixed onto a stand and a mat with a grid on it so I could take accurate and centered photos more easily. Here they are.
In order to ensure that they stayed fixed in place when I took the photos I stuck a little bit of Blue Tac on the bottom. Now I had my 6 viewpoints I decided to go with the one you see on the top left. The reason is because this is where the Hot Wheels logo isn't inverted meaning it'd look the most natural. I then imported them into Adobe Illustrator.
Once in Illustrator I dimmed the image to 40% so it'd be easier to see the lines I create. To create these lines I used the pen tool, each click of it would generate an anchor which can be individually modified to help shape things better.
To start I created a basic body, although I didn't really do this that much a decent suggestion I can give is to minimize how many anchors you use to ensure it doesn't get too fiddly or confusing to go back and modify later.
I then used the eclipse tool to both remove the empty space in the wheel arches and make the wheels themselves. To make sure the hidden part of the wheel wasn't present as lines I used the shape builder tool (Shift + M) and alt to delete the outer space. I also fixed up the outer shell to make it smoother alongside adding the basic window shape.
I next started on headlights and basic decal details, the most difficult part definitely being the 'PLYMOUTH' text because I first had to find a font which was at least remotely similar and then having to use the pen tool to form the bottom of the Y and tip of the P.
Lastly I added wheel detail and the inner side of these wheel arches.
Following on from that I went and finished the decals and added in the body details to give it more shape. The small Hot Wheels logo under the 50 was just a copy and paste so it was very simple, the 50s on the wheels follow the same process. I also had to check the wheels and modify the position of the right one because it wasn't aligned horizontally and would look weird if for instance I decided to add ground to it. After this I think it looked a lot better.
Here is what it looked liked without the background.
Here is what it looked like after I added all the colours to it. The transition from simple colouring to something which looked more detailed would come once I went into the shading and highlighting process. A process very similar to the dark crystal character design concept art.
The shading involved two different types of process, the first was using gradients to get a gradual shift from shaded to brightened areas with colour in between for parts such as the body and wheels. The second process was using the multiply and lighten blending modes along with a black and white brush in order to help give a 3D effect to the smaller details of the car.
-Final Product-
Comments