For this project I decided to design a post-apocalyptic car and create the gear shifter that would go inside it. The stylistic inspiration for this is the film Mad Max: Fury Road along with the other Mad Max films. This project was a good opportunity to develop my skills in multiple aspects of visualising designs such as my hand-drawn sketching, digital rendering and 3D modelling.
The early attempts at drawing cars were heavily based on already existing cars so I could get a good idea of how everything on a car should look proportionally.
As I got a bit more confident I tried to draw the cars from multiple angles, making them look more exciting and interesting. I perhaps was more comfortable jsut drawing a standard isometric view but I really need to try and push myself more to draw cars at more interesting angles like from a worm's eye view, which would make the car look more powerful and menacing.
While I was thinking about how the car design would look I was also creating some sketches for how the gear shifter would look and how it would work. For instance for the top of the gear stick I was planning on using an old engine piston I found because it really works with the post-apocalyptic/ rat-rod look. However it was fairly heavy and it needed a strong base to keep it from tipping over. It was clear the base needed to be made of very strong heavy material like steel.
Using some of the sketches I scanned in I decided to play around with them on Photoshop, I managed to create some interesting effects with the blending options and it also gave me a chance to practice laying items out on a page.
The car design, sketched out by hand and then edited in Photoshop to add colour and also the background. It seemed only logical to create a bit of a desert background, like the setting of the Mad Max film franchise. The background helps to add context to the car, placing it in that post-apocalyptic setting.
In addition I created an alternate version with most of the surroundings blacked out, but with the car protruding out. It makes it look a bit more 'actiony' and dramatic.
At the end of this project I felt there was a lot of improvement in my confidence in my skills, however I know there is still a long way to go. My sketching can often be a little rough in places and sometimes they look a bit odd proportionally however, with practice I can greatly improve. To improve my digital rendering skills in Photoshop I feel that there needs to be more texture and depth to really add life to my renderings. As for the 3D modelling skills I feel I have come very far in this project, I hadn't previously used metal to make something so I learnt a lot of skills in model-making. I can always keep moving forward in model-making by looking out for using more techniques and striving for high quality finishing.
