This week of uni, we had an intensive course on visual design in which we had to take an object and create a vehicle concept from studying it and an book with pictures in of our choice. Using spirit markers and layout pads. Sounds pretty fun right?
The nerd in me was like
'I can make awesome star ships and sit and flail about it in my room'
Until 10 minutes later I found out we create a vehicle that would actually work on earth via land sea or sky. No cool star ships then.
I started off with trying to find an interest object, whilst trying not to think of the end result, which was challenging, but I settled on this vase I picked up from a charity shop.
I then set about drawing a load of silhouettes to get ideas for vehicles from the shapes, I found this hard to do at first, trying to visualise the silhouettes and none of the embellishments but I think I got better as I did them, as I began to understand the shapes I created.
I drew my vase in perspective to get an idea oh how it could be broken up into compound shapes that I could perhaps re-arrange. This really helped but I also learnt that I am still not as good as I would like to be with perspective drawing.
For my book I chose 'The Art of Thor The Dark World'
A. I'm obsessed with Norse Mythology
B. It is a really good art book, and it could inspire some really interesting vehicle designs.
Our task for the day we used our art/picture books was (using our layout pads) to find a silhouette to draw over in 10 seconds and then 1 minute to draw around it and fill it in.
for bringing this book
However what I produced really surprised me, you could tell what the objects or figures were (for the most part) just by its silhouette. I really wanted to achieve this in my own designs so I produced a few more pages to get my head around the idea. They turned out great and I was starting to get ideas for vehicles already!
I then progressed by looking into the negative space between objects and figures in the art book create silhouettes. I this to create shapes to manipulate with my vase silhouettes to produce a vehicle concept silhouettes. I am really happy with how these turned out at, I can already see a few shapes that could be developed into cars and air craft.
Taking all of the silhouettes I had done into account, I produced my own possible vehicle silhouettes. There are a few good ones that stood out to me but a lot of them are very unrealistic, this was the first time I hit a wall in the project, and I was running out of time so I went with the ones that felt best and tried to develop them further.
The stronger silhouettes looked like they could be turned into boats, so I produced some themed mood boards to try and spark some ideas, for boats that would actually work realistically.
Speed/Modern Boats
Sailing Boats
Viking Boats
(This was honestly inspired by Thor 2, not just my obsession.)
From being inspired by these mood boards and all of the silhouettes, the below ideas were created.
This one, I liked, but it was not drawn correctly in perspective, also the sail looked really out of place in the design, too modern for the old style of the boat. It has good concepts and bad.
This design was more modern, but using oars instead of a sail. However the design lacked the realistic ability to float, does it look like it would work? Nope. It looks too top heavy.
I came to my final deign quite quickly, taking features I liked from both of the previous designs, and it felt right so I didn't want to change it. I really like the rudder handle as you can tell it is from the vase, along with the opening under the ship at the front. If I had more time I would have liked to develop it further but I had to be realistic with the fact this was the best deign I could come up with in a short time.
Here is the final I produced of my vehicle concept of a boat. I really can't digital paint but I think I've got how the ship looks on paper, so I'm pretty happy with it.
The main thing I found with this project is that it was hard producing the required amount of work in 4 days, purely because I wasn't used to it. I know I could have done more and it has shown me I need to make better use of my out of contact hours and really apply myself to what I'm doing. It has made me more motivated as I have proven I can throw together a somewhat decent design in very little time.
