Lucky Number 2D6

Superman car complete

Finally finished my first car design in Forza 3, which I've been blogging about over the last few weeks as I worked on it. I decided to use the HKS Genesis from the first DLC pack as the 'canvas', since I'd just bought one to see what it was like.

I actually find laying out a complete car design much trickier than creating the images for it, so I'd been experimenting with a few ideas as I worked on the vinyls. After trying a few things, I settled on something I was pretty happy with, and as other people seemed to like it as well (thanks to the Sams for their kind words), I've taken the plunge and put it up for sale on my in-game 'Storefront'.

Here's a 'montage' of the car in action:

And here are close-ups of the sides:

(If you happen to own Forza 3 and would like a copy of your very own, you should be able to find the design by searching on the Storefront for Superman/Batman, BigBadB UK or Big Bad Racing. Even if you don't buy it, feel free to rate the design so I can see what people think.)

Next up will be the second version of the design, featuring Batman. No idea when it'll be done, I'm afraid, but I'll post some pics when it is.

Back in the paintshop

Just finished the second image for the Superman/Batman series of designs I'm working on in Forza 3:

Next it's time to work on some logos and other bits and pieces before trying to put everything together on a car.

Not dead, just busy

Been quiet around here for a while now, thanks largely to a stinking cold and a job interview (not the ideal combination, but fingers crossed), as well as my innate laziness. I'll try to post a bit more regularly this week, but in the meantime, here's a quick summary of things I have seen/done/played:

• 500 Days of Summer is a fun reaction to rom-coms, and one of those rare movies where the ending is actually the best bit, as opposed to tacked on, implausible, just downright bad, or some combination of all three. Dead Air is okay, but not as well produced, intelligent or effective as the almost-identical-in-basic-premise Pontypool. Pandorum and Spread are both extremely forgettable. Gamer is just downright bad. And not in that appealing, so-bad-it's-actually-genius way, just in a bad way.
• Have been working my way through Seinfeld, finally. It takes some time to find its rhythm, and the short first season is very weak, but it gets much better from the second season on, and I can already see why it was such a big hit in its day. 
• Haven't seen the latest Doctor Who special yet, but I do have it recorded for a rainy afternoon, which are becoming increasingly frequent here in sunny Brighton.
• Modern Warfare 2 is very slick and very good, at least in multiplayer - haven't actually done much single player yet, as online always beckons. It's definitely more of an evolution than a revolution, but when the previous version was so strong, that's no bad thing.
• Work on the Superman car design for Forza 3 has been slow, but I'm hoping to have something to show for it this week.

Once more unto the paintshop, part 5

Finally, the first image of Superman is complete, at least for now. I tend to keep messing around with things for a while after 'finishing' a vinyl design, cleaning up lines and making small adjustments to things that I notice aren't quite right, and it's likely that I may do some more work on the cape, depending on how many layers the rest of the final car design uses up.

Anyway, here are the last stages of the design. First, I cleaned up the face a little and blocked in the basic outline of the cape:

Then did the first pass on the shading for the main figure and face, as well as adding a little more detail to the shading on the fist:

Then, finally, the line work and some basic shading on the cape finishes things off (well, like I said, for now anyway):

Next up will be the second image, a close-up of Supes' head and shoulders for the other side of the car. I probably won't bother with lots of 'stage by stage' shots for this one, but I'll post a pic when it's done.

As anyone who's been following this will have realised, I don't work very fast, just doing a little bit here and there as the mood takes me, but the second image is a lot simpler, so I'm hoping to get it done relatively quickly. Then it'll be time for the Superman/Batman logo and putting it all together on a car, before moving on to the Batman version. I still don't have any real idea what car I'm going to use, so if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to leave a comment.

Once more unto the paintshop, part 4

Got the first pass at the line work for head and face done. Unfortunately, while it looks pretty good in the editor, once it's on the car the scaling messes up a lot of the detail, especially around the nose:

I'll have to give it a revision, thickening some of the lines and simplifying some of the shapes so that they remain visible at 'on car' size. Once that's done, it'll be time to get to work on the shading for the whole figure.

Once more unto the paintshop, part 3

Been managing to fit in the odd hour or two in the Forza 3 paintshop, which combined with my slow pace means that there's still a way to go on my first design. On the plus side, I am getting faster as I get used to the new control layout, and I'm starting to get a better feel for how much detail will actually come through at 'usable' size. (One of the main reasons it takes me so long to get anything done is that I'm a bit obsessive about detail, and often spend lots of time on things that don't actually show up very well when the design is shrunk down to fit on a car.)

I got most of the black line work on the main figure finished first, along with the basic detail for the belt and trunks. The 'place markers' for the left-hand side of the cape and the neck are just to get the relative positions right - I'll work more on those later:

This evening I took a first pass at the chest emblem, which wasn't quite as tricky as I expected, but took more layers than I'd like. After looking at the pics, it seems I'm going to need to thicken up the black outlines, and I may change some of the proportions at the same time to make the central 'S' stronger - the lines are a little thin on this version:

Once I've mucked about with the emblem a little more, it'll be time to tackle the head and all-important face.

Once more unto the paintshop, part 2

Busy day with job hunting and related activities, but found some time this afternoon to finish the outline of the rest of the figure, apart from the head and cloak - the former because faces are so important to get right that I wanted to get back into practise with the rest first, the latter because you only get 1,000 layers and I want to see how many everything else takes before deciding how detailed the cloak will be:

It was then a fairly simple matter to fill in the block colour for most of the figure, and delete the pale green outline that I'd been using as a guide. I'm not entirely convinced about the blue I've chosen as a base, but I didn't want to get bogged down in choosing just the right shade. It can be changed later if necessary, and this way I can get started on the details and shading tomorrow. Once that's done, I'll get the trunks and belt (which should be simple) and the chest emblem (which I suspect will be a nightmare) done before moving on to the head and cape:

Fans of 'sequential art' will probably be able to make a fairly good guess at the identity of the superhero in question now the blue's gone in, if the pose alone hadn't given it away...

Once more unto the paintshop (updated)

Forza 3's immense shininess has tempted me back into the 'paintshop' area, where I ended up spending most of my time in Forza 2 (instead of, you know, actually racing cars).

I've decided to get to work on something I always intended to do in Forza 2 but never found the time, inspired by the awesome artwork on Ed McGuinness. This is a multi-image project that should end up with at least three related livery designs, so it should keep me busy for a while.

As it's been a while since I did anything like this, I thought I'd catalogue the process. I have no idea if it'll be of any interest to anyone, but if nothing else, it might help me keep everything straight and maybe spot where I could do something better or more efficiently.

(You can't take photos in the vinyl editor in Forza 3. As I haven't decided what cars I'm going to use for the finished designs yet, I'm just slapping things onto the side of a Lexus that I've painted white in order to take these shots.)

Having picked the image I want to start with, the first step is to roughly block out the overall shape of the image. I tend to use a pale colour that won't be used in the finished design, to make it easy to remove later on. The lines are to help me when resizing parts of the image in the editor:

Once that's complete, it's time to start working on the outline of the image proper. In the past I've found it easier to complete the outline of the whole image before going to work on filling it in, but as it's been a while and this is a (re)learning experience, I've decided to spend a little time focussing on the fist which forms the single largest part of the figure. Here's the finished outline:

The next step is to copy the previous layers, recolour them to something flesh-like, then shift and shrink them to create the outline of the fist. Then I can just fill in the rest with a few more shapes before working on the detail:

First version of the detail work on the fist:

Final (well, at least for now) version of the fist, with some simple shading and some of the smaller lines removed for neatness:

More pics will follow as the rest of the figure takes shape...

Oops-a-daisy

Been a bit quiet around here lately, as I've been busy with job applications - like buses, you wait ages for an opportunity, then three come along at once.

It's a similar story with games. After a few months with precious little new or interesting, the last couple of weeks have seen me finally get around to Empire: Total War (thanks to a special deal on Steam) and now both Forza 3 and Borderlands are clamouring for my time, just when I don't have nearly as much to spare. Grumble, mutter, sigh.

Suffice it to say for now that all three are shaping up to be great fun, and I'll try to scribble down some more detailed thoughts about them soon. In the meantime, here's my new desktop background, courtesy of Ali and Forza 3's photo mode...
 

Mmmm... Shiny

The Forza 3 demo (available on Xbox Live now) is awesomely shiny.