As mentioned earlier in the year I had been given the task to replicate a hot wheels car given to me in MAYA. the car given to me is known as a 'speed dozer' and looks to be a mix of a digger and drag car. So from there i had to replicate it in 3D so this blog post will be about the process of making it and an overall evaluation.
Before I had to start making this I needed reference images of the car to make it. For this I took some pictures of it at orthographic views to refer to. Unfortunately, my vehicle doesn't exist in real life so I couldn't obtain blueprints for it as it is so one of a kind. but this is where learning illustrator ties in to it as I had the task of replicating a side view of the car. This was a long and hard process fro me as i had only used illustrator to create some basic pictures instead of my car so it took a while before I created a final product I was happy with. As time went on though I became less happy with my image as when making my car in 3D noticing the inaccuracies I had portrayed became more frequent which resulted in my speed dozer being more a product of me then the reference image as the issues with it made it harder to stick to it.
The first point of the car i produced was the side panel. originally the idea was to create a side panel and build up the car but given the anatomy of mine that seemed impossible. This part is where I received help in creating that side panel because out of class mine was different so it couldn't be built like a standard car. It was after making that where i took a hiatus to focus on synoptic work and it was the though of having to make this in its entirety that put me off to come back to it. After a while one of my lectures spoke about a tutorial to make the wheel which is where I came back and followed it to create such. I also noticed he made another video about creating the rims of it so it was like hitting 4 birds with one stone once I had done that. The only downside to following these was that I didn't take the chance to make the wheels my own which as a look of hindsight I would have at least tried to attempt.
After this is where I picked up the ball on making this car and the next part I wanted to do was the spoiler. Originally, I had made a square and roughly shaped it out and from there had inserted a series of edge loops o then extrude from referring back to the image of my car. That is then when I was told to think about making this differently and to build it from the ground up rather then to build how I saw it. That advice helped me throughout this in its entirety as i followed through on that advice which gave me my spoiler from doing so.
Considering what my car is I thought the next best thing to do was the blade of the vehicle. My process for this was to make the body last as there were many parts which could be added onto it. this time I started building from the base up making a series of extrusions to give me the rough basic shape. And from there I would use edge loops and multi cuts to define the shape of the blade more.
With the blade and the spoiler out the way, I then decided to go for the dozer's torso. creating this was a tricky ordeal given the shape and took me many attempts to perfect it. My biggest issue with my previous attempts at it was I had forgot the windows and couldn't turn back to add them in. Eventually i did it by taking a basic cube and moving it out to the rough shape. i then made extrusions below it so I could produce additional extrusions for where it stretches out and have the basic shape. Edge loops where then inserted on the car marking the windows and door handle so they could then be extruded inwards and outwards. that then gave me a more defined shape as the car body was beginning to take shape. The next and final part was to insert edge loops around my existing edges to then smooth the whole object giving me its final shape.
After this i then had to produce the second part of the body which was the most intricate piece by far. This was the only part that wasn't built upwards in the manor the rest were because I couldn't perceive how to so I took the standard cube and used the edges of it to create the part. After a while of creating it through extruding edges and making multi cuts I had created the shape,but in making it I had badly messed up the topography of the car. I then spent a lot of my time amending the issues I had create getting rid of all unnecessary vertices and faces before I had my final body part.
The final part was creating the pipes that rest in front of the side panel. For this I took a pipe shape and made it fit in line with the ones on my car. Then I used the multi component tool to select the top and bottom face and wedged them out, extruding the top face to fit in the car. This then resulted in the car being built.
The last part of the task was to texture my car. For this I headed onto substance painter. Before hand I had never used this program but was told it is fairly easy to use provided I group together parts of my car before being exported out into it.i found the program good and really help bring out the details in my car to finish it off.
overall I am really proud of what I have accomplished. I have struggled at times with 3D modelling so to produce this has really made me proud and I couldn't be happy. during this project i had faced many issues with the car and for a lot of them I have faced individually showing how I can learn from my mistakes and improve.
However if to be done again I wish I hadn't of been scarred over this project to hold me back from wanting to do it. As a result Iost time which could have been used in making this even better. texturing this I didn't have long to do so and given more time I would have been able to add the hot wheels log on and other finer details. The last thing I would want to improve on is my illustrator skills as there were mistake made in my piece which went I had to go off road when designing some of my. Regardless I am immensely happy with the final product.
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