Inspiration level ''Zero'' : Solution 1

I figure out that, when I can't draw anything interesting, trucks and bus'ish' vehicules pretty much always turn out ok. It's always good for self estime/motivation.

Not only ships

I do appreciate designing ships, cars and other mechanicals thingy, but I also enjoy creating weird characters and illustrations.

This one was for a late valentine's gift.

Something Star Wars-ish

Even if it's not an exact reproduction, looking at existing design always give some good hints at what work and doesn't work.

Star Wars ships are hiconic, mostly because of their peculiar geometry. Of course, as many, I love the X wing. But the Y and B wing have also great stence and proportions.

For now I just focused on the X and Y wing.

Starfox basic enemy

After briefly working on the Arwing, now it's time for some basic enemy ships. In the Super Nintendo game, as for the Arwing, each 3D model are very simple (20 polygons max probably). So for those enemy, I just tried something on my own, so they look aggressive, but still with simple volumes.

For now it look too far away from the original, so more research has to be done on my side before further sketches. Also, I never really understood if the enemy were robots or actual people flying ships for Andross.

Starfox's Arwing

After listening to the last IGN Nintendo podcast, I went into a really short Starfox study of the Arwing design + a "re-design" of the main body.

I'm still confuse about what are the vertical elements for, beside for looks. I'll have to figure it out in further sketchs, but for now I'm thinking either for extra fuel tank or booster+intake+antena contraption.

You can find below the last IGN podcast about Starfox.

http://tinyurl.com/oyplxwb

For lack of better solution...

Since 2010 with Redbull Teaming up with Gran Turismo for the X1, and most recently with the wonderfull book "The Timeless Racer" from Daniel Simon, I've been "trying" to design a custom "Race" car in 3D.

"Trying", because I've never really succeed at it. Since 2010 I've tryed at least 4 different design iteration + an airplane, and I've never been close to a result I really dig. The overall shape always looked good for me, but the final result look always weird and clumsy for the details and smooth surfaces...

Reason for that many failure, 2 big mistake : Jumping too early on the 3D before fixing the 2D blueprint, and using a software that doesn't match my need (and also limited skills, it's too easy to blame only on the tools).

Turn out using polygone modeling is too hard for me regarding product design. So, next time I'll go back to my first 3D Software (Rhino), much more convenient for product in my opinion.

It's always good to try different design process, even when they fail.

(Above, image from Daniel Simon's book "The Timeless Racer")

From roads to tracks, or tracks to roads ?

When Mclaren introduced the 650s, they made it crystal clear that switching to a P1 like front design will provide a 30% increase for aero efficiancy. From that point it was also clear that a replacement from the 12C GT3 to a 650s GT3 was incoming.

Weither or not this change of front styling was solaly design for a better GT3 package and then applyed to a road car will be a lucky guess. Mostly it's a nice reminder of what those car company used to be. Their sole purpose 50 years ago was not how many road car they could sell, but how many wins they could get from various championship.

Road car were just a legal step you had to pass in order to homologate your race car. That, brought  legendary names like GTO and GT1.

From today's car company, Mclaren seams so far like the one with the closest and cleanest  bound from tracks to roads.

Will they one day, create first a GT3 car and then civilized it for homolagation purpose seams unlikly, but at least the 650s GT3 looks like something else.

Is it about to get fun ?

Since the poor start of this blog, I've been experimenting with several kind of design process, for profesionnal or personal project. I think it's time for me to start posting on this thing, at least as a reminder for my current research project, and probably severall smaller personal experimentation with design.

It'll go from interaction and product design to whatever design and surrely few personal opinion about what's intriguing for me.