Gathering Reference and Ideas

One of the most important parts of my design methodology is to gather reference that help stimulate the creative process. Anything from pieces of concept art, pictures, paintings, or even pieces of text that can help me come up with something interesting. Having a big variety of reference and inspiration will guarantee that I don't just settle for the first idea that pops into my head, but that I give myself the option to explore new concepts that maybe I hadn't considered before.

For this process I depend a lot on searches using google images, pintrest and art sites like polycount or art station. In addition to this, going out there and taking photographs myself is a huge tool to get reference for little details that might be harder to find online.

I save all this reference material into one folder and I then assemble it into a single reference sheet. This allows me to cull through the images and start to clump together similar concepts. The reference sheet becomes incredibly useful once I start modeling, and I can just keep this once sheet open with all my reference in one place. The final jpeg tends to be one really high resolution file I keep panning around. Sometimes the file can be as big as 9,000 x 9,000 pixels.

For this project I created two separate sheets one for the front area or the propulsion systems, and one for the cabin/carriage area in the rear. Most of my sources of inspiration for these sheets were early 20th century race cars, concepts and design from "The Order", as well as Nikola Tesla inventions and steam powered cars. My love for automobiles was definitely a big influence for this piece, I even included a Morgan three wheeler which is one of my all time favorite cars.

Steampunk Podracer - The Beginning

In 2009 I started a project with the objective of creative a "Steampunk Podracer". This concept would challenge my concept, modeling and texturing skills to the max, since it would be a very complex project. Unfortunately this project proved a bit to ambitious to what I was able to do with my spare time. I was working full time as an intern at SOE and I was still finishing my last months of college.

It's been several years since that failed attempt and it seems like now is a good time to give that project a second try. Not only have I become a faster more proficient artist but the tools that are available to us nowadays allow for much faster turnarounds on complex assets. Most recently I did a quick test with Substance Painter 2.0, and I think this will be the perfect tool to tackle this project.

Here's the lamp that I used to test it:



For this test I borrow an awesome design from the guys at: machinelamps.com. Even though the test isn't perfect and could use a bit more polish, I was extremely happy with the material response and the speed of the workflow.

With this in mind...lets get this project started! First thing I will need is to come up with a good references to come up with some fresh design and ideas.