Crankshaft's Sketchbook

I like all the intricate detail and presentation of your tank. You can clearly see all the thought and effort that has gone into it. Impressive stuff.

Hands never stop being scary though.

Thanks Val! Unfortunately it took me so long to do it that I may never be able to prepare a portfolio

Updates. Going through some tough personal issues but here's some stuff.

Did this one as best as I could. Time to move to another one.





Blender assignment. Mine is second.





Some random modeling as I learn blender.



I think my next design will be a cab over truck. Not sure how far I can go. Learning another software while designing is very overwhelming but it helps me learn only what I need to know.

Updates. I love modeling! Been mainly learning Blender. The classes at cg cookie are informative but super boring so I'm starting on another design. This is going to be a slightly sci fi tanker truck. I want it to be a cross country version instead ie think of a Land Rover. Not much design, I want to keep it simple as I learn Blender.





Gas truck wip paint over. Many professionals say that concept art is more about product making therefore you should use whatever means to generate ideas as fast as possible. In this case I simply painted a sketch over the Mercedes photo. It already has a good silhouette, proportions, shapes etc so why start from scratch?



I have too many ideas and this is actually from my back log of old ideas. This sketch is around 2 years old (my eyes hurt looking at it) but the idea is still good (I hope).



Incredibly boring.



Wip of the cg cookie plane.



Dart ship. Design time is over, time to move to the illustrative side of things ie mirror the perspective, cleaning up edges.

Updates. Taking another mentorship! Starts tomorrow.

Anatomy stuff.



Truck update. Huge mess. Loads of modelling problems such as impossible geometry, bad topology, vertices not lining up etc. Wanted to focus more on the bigger picture before committing to a clean model.







Dart ship progress. The clean up begins. Edge control nightmare.





Cg cookie.

Love the truck Crank. Reminds me of the fantastic vehicle designs Land Rover did for Judge Dredd (yes, that crap one with Stallone in). Anatomy stuff is looking good too. I take it you're extrapolating the pose to be viewed from a different angle, otherwise your viewpoint is too high.

Updates. Been working non stop on the mentorship. I'm learning about environments. Originally there were way more ideas and stuff. I'm missing working on my truck.

Each one of these has a back story/motif but it's too much to post. I may post tips/things I learn soon.







The rough stuff. Since I know a lot of ideas will die the focus here was on quantity over quality.

Atto wrote:

Love the truck Crank. Reminds me of the fantastic vehicle designs Land Rover did for Judge Dredd (yes, that crap one with Stallone in). Anatomy stuff is looking good too. I take it you're extrapolating the pose to be viewed from a different angle, otherwise your viewpoint is too high.

Thanks man but I realized way more problems with it. Going to redo it asap.

Glad you like the truck!

Updates. Brain is almost fried. I thought drawing was hard but trying to come up with ideas all the time, balance design, research, backstory, motif, along with the drawing fundamentals is overwhelming. I don't know if I can do that for a living.

On a positive note he said that this is a huge level up from last week! He said that I nailed number 7! Super proud of this, I've never done anything like this before especially coming from a bg of cars!

I learned too much to post everything but here's some stuff on number 7 (the most successful one):









-excellent use of all the power points
-composition and the whole image follows the golden ratio (even look at the curved stone tiles)
-very fresh new concept/idea presented
-multiple reads that enhance flow/story
- multiple focal points that complement each other, Pandora's box, the wizard, the serpent and the guy trying to stop the wizard
-way more energy and dynamic
-push your z plan by having story elements going back and forth. Most people just leave a focal at the mid plane producing a cardboard pop up book feel.
-Don't be a purist. Use whatever means to get things done quickly. Paint over photos, use 3d etc.
-Don't show sketches to clients. Always include some value bc it helps avoid dangerous scope creep and open endedness.

Sketchup blocking of the environments. The goal here is to establish a solid foundation, introduce some serendipity and to induce happy accidents. The block in was very crude and spontaneous.







Cleaner line thumbnails. My notes are purple his is the rest.







Support sketches and refs. The motif/back story is that Buddha emerges every 1000 years and he gives his blessings by removing disease, famine, bring rain etc to the people. The monks are welcoming his arrival. However he also has the ability to shield himself from evil intruders by summoning a blockage of hands (common Hindu symbolism).
The lotus blossom is a symbol of Buddhism and Cambodian so I thought it would make sense to have him emerging from it.

The other shot consists of a serpent/snake that is intended to be more evil. He was a dangerous creature until fighters petrified him. However now we have sketchy travellers wanting to summon him from the dead. He has a poisonous venom that contaminates the water, something the intruders plan on using.

These thumbnails do look a bit different from your usual pics, more dynamic and intriguing in their composition.
And it's good to see you developing more storytelling elements to go with the more familiar technical designs.
Looking forward to seeing the finished images.