Building a 1930’s vehicle

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.

I then clipped off the front by merging lowest with a zero height rectangle.

I used the slice tool to get rid of the flat bits.

The running boards were created using the dome tool with a shallow edge on the relief.

The front and rear fenders again were formed using the dome tool and a steeper angle.

I then nudged the headlights up to where they needed to be in the side view.

The rest of the fenders were then completed.

The dome tool was again used to create the hood on all of the vehicles.

Then everything except the headlights was combined. The headlights were merged (highest) with the combined relief.

The cockpit relief was next, once again created using the dome tool.

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.

Building the vehicles – part three

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.

I then clipped off the front by merging lowest with a zero height rectangle.

I used the slice tool to get rid of the flat bits.

The running boards were created using the dome tool with a shallow edge on the relief.

The front and rear fenders again were formed using the dome tool and a steeper angle.

I then nudged the headlights up to where they needed to be in the side view.

The rest of the fenders were then completed.

The dome tool was again used to create the hood on all of the vehicles.

Then everything except the headlights was combined. The headlights were merged (highest) with the combined relief.

The cockpit relief was next, once again created using the dome tool.

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.

Building the vehicles – part two

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.

I then used the offset tool to create the vectors I needed to shape the inside of the cab and ox of the pickup.

That’s how the first vehicle vectors were created. The other vehicles used many of these same pieces.

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.

Building the vehicles – part one

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.

After I had built the reliefs I went into the front and side views to see how the pieces looked height wise in relation to each other. As needed I nudged them up or down.

I also rendered the piece after every operation to make sure I was achieving the results I wanted.

The round reliefs were then modified by dropping the center  about a quarter inch to form a pocket. The translucent lenses will be dropped into this space.

All of the reliefs were combined by using the MERGE HIGHEST command.

I then created a center relief with a zero height. This was merged lowest to form the hole in the center.

I duplicated these parts to form five pieces. Three were done in the size I built. Two were modified by scaling them, one shorter and one narrower. They were then tool pathed and sent off to the MultiCam to be routed from 1″ thick 30 pound Precision Board.

Once the pieces came off the router I dropped in the lenses and I brushed on two coats of paint used a little sculpting epoxy to permanently fasten them in place. When the paint was dry I put the LED lights behind for a test run. It looked great!

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.

Starting the color

Before I could do the final assembly of the ‘SIGN’ letters and the rounded top of the planet I needed to do the painting and gilding. It would be impossible to do once they are in place.  I started with  two coats of plain copper metallic over the entire letters and background. I allowed things to dry in-between coats.

Then I did a blend coat of black cherry on the bottom, through copper and into a metallic orange on the upper portions. The top letters are the example. The bottom letters have a greenish brown glaze we call ‘SWAMP’ brushed on and then wiped off. Once the glaze is on the letters are ready for gilding.

Published with permission from precisionboard.blogspot.com. Source.