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Each time I get a few minutes I add more pieces to the Sign Challenge piece. It is largely hand sculpting at this point. The latest additions are the rocket legs and the rocket engine. The piece is a parody of the sign making industry and makes commentary on two long standing issues. The first is the old time ‘snapper’.

Once the accurately routed vehicle forms are securely anchored in place, it is relatively easy and quick to apply  thin coat of sculpting epoxy and sculpt in the fine details. The character armatures are first built from twisted wire, over which I press on a little sculpting epoxy to form the basic shape. Once cured a final layer is again pressed on and the details are sculpted in. The motor cycle was first along with the form for the girl hanging on the back

When we left off the vehicle was looking pretty good but now it was time to start in on the customization to make four different vehicles. The vehicles would be a pickup, a long flatbed truck and a short flatbed cab over. Behind the bar were three round corner rectangles. I selected them and made them into a 1″ tall relief.

One of the things I love about EnRoute is how I can combine all kinds of shapes to form anything I can imagine. Sometimes it is a matter of adding things together and sometimes it is about taking things away. By changing things up just a little I can modify the shapes and change them at will to make something different. On the vehicles I started with the headlights.  The first step was a simple oval using the dome tool

The bodies of the car were both a great deal of fun and also very challenging. I had to imagine all of the different shaped building blocks which would form the various body panels. I first created the vectors for half of the vehicles, duplicated, flipped and aligned before combining them. In the first screen capture we see the front and rear fenders, the passenger cab and the hood of the little truck The square shape will form the box of the pickup. The outside oval , which is the chassis base was only used to guide my sizing of the vehicle

The Sign Challenge sculpture will have five hover vehicles circling around a central rocket. I built some common part files and then modified them to make each vehicle unique. I began by drawing up the concept art for two of the vehicles. The file was built entirely in EnRoute. I built the vectors and then the reliefs as individual pieces, and then nudged them up or down in the front view to make everything work