Steampunk Tank 01!

Over the last few days i have been modelling out a steampunk tank. I have tried to keep the shapes chunky so it has that charming feel aswell as trying to add as much detail as i can as i dont want it to be over complex like some things in the steampunk universe. Here is some screenshots!

I will now UV map it and start the texturing process!

Vehicles!

From doing my art test, I thought for my first diorama i will model a steampunk vehicle! or more along the lines of a tank. The shape of them are very chunky and solid so this way i can get some solid textures going on. Also tanks are big! and i believe i can get a good feel and look when i turn it into miniature with the tilt shift photography :)

I gathered a handful of images of tanks and vehicles to start me off and i put them into a mood board.

Art Test with the Coin!

In my previous post, I talked about how i was having a little trouble capturing the "miniature" feel so i found this company who places a coin next to real life individual objects as this helps with the sense of scale.

I tired this out myself and this is what it turned out like.

From this, i feel i have definitely achieved the "miniature" feel from the coin being there. I also think because i have taken the edge of the wooden table out, this helps keep the object compact and helps with the scale.

I emailed this work off to my tutor and we both agreed that i needed to change a few things in order to get it more believable and real looking. My tutor also mentioned that i didn't really need the coin as he thought i also captured the "miniature" feel in my first 2 tests so maybe it could of been the wooden table that was off setting the scale and distorting the miniature look.

With this test done then, i learned that

• Use more polys in the models - as this is believably and not something that is going in a game.
• Work on the textures - Make the brass and the cast iron textures more believable. 
• Don't show the tables edges
• Get rid of the coin!
• Work on the lighting a bit more
• Keep my Steam Punk dioramas the same as things from the Steam Punk universe - Don't change to much - keep the shapes chunky! 

From this i have my list of what i need to follow so i will now gather a hand full of different things from Steam Punk and decide what will be best to model for my dioramas :) 

Art Testing!

I needed to do a art test first to see if i could get the miniature tilt shift affect digitally. I decided to model a Steam Punk rocket which is placed upon some gears. This could be a trophy of some kind or could even well be a monument. I placed it on top of a wooden table so it didn't look like it was floating in mid air. Here is what it looked like once it was complete.

Once i finished modelling and rendering the model in Marmoset Toolbag 2, I had to start testing out different camera angles for when i apply the tilt shift to the image. To start me off i used the image i had above, applied the tilt shift image and increased the saturation. For me i didnt quite capture the "miniature" feel as i felt it was the wooden table that was making it still look large and i also wasn't happy with the camera angle.

With the next test, i decided to zoom the camera out a bit more and make the table larger, but again i just couldn't quite capture that "miniature" look and feel. I then decided to do more research into tilt shift and see how other photographers done it. I also believed that my main factor of why i couldn't capture the miniature feel was because of it was only one object. Normally tilt shift is done of towns and city's were there is allot going on but as i am modelling dioramas, this is were i felt my challenge was.

I then came across a company called Skrekkogle and they do individual objects such as a car, and to get the "miniture" feel, they place a large coin next to it and then do the tilt shift process. I thought i would give this a try with my dioramas and see if it could help me get that small look. 






With this, I decided to model a 50p coin and do a test with this.

Lots of Books!

Now that I had my theme, I went out and bought some books based on Steam Punk. I already had lots of images from the Internet but having a book at hand is always best!

The books show tons of steam punk creations from weapons to clothing so I thought with my dioramas, I could create a collection of different steam punk objects.

I loved some of the characters that were shown, some were very simple and charming and others were very complex. That's another reason why i have chosen to do Steam Punk as i could make it as simple or as complex as i wanted to. 

Research!

As I have my basic idea of what i want to do for my final project, I needed a theme for my dioramas, something i could take lots of ideas and make them my own and maybe something i could then keep adding to if i wanted to in the future, this way my final project could never be broken.

I wanted something that had big, bold brash shapes, not overly complex but that had some level of detail.

I started looking at sci fi themes as that has what i was looking for, I can across a couple of things, one of those was an Artist called Simon Stalenhag, he is a Swedish sci-fi concept artist and he creates vivid, semi- dystopian worlds where realistic robotic designs blend in with classic cars, playing children and woodland creatures. I really liked the robot designs and how believable they looked in its surroundings.







I also came across Cosmic Motors and these are futuristic sci-fi vehicles that look believable and they look even more believable because there is a person standing in front of them.







From looking at both of these, Both deliver the complexity that i was looking for as a theme for my dioramas and by looking at them, they instantly pointed me towards the Steam Punk era.
Steam Punk has a massive collection of bold and brash vehicles, air ships and robots for me to look at.