Feng Zhu Desert Bike Raider
By Andrew Fraser (a.vector)
This beautifully rendered, cleanly designed piece from Andrew Fraser sports a fascinating almost-but-not-quite steampunk style. Inspired by the concept works of Feng Zhu, Andrew has managed to capture, almost true to the original, all the intricate detail and design concepts that Feng puts into his work.
Andrew, a mechatronics engineer who was introduced to 3D design in 2005, produced this work in all manner of programs, with a workflow that leads through Blender, Max, ZBrush and Photoshop to finally bring this stunning work to us.
To find out more about this piece, visit the blenderartists thread, or to see the work in progress and to see what Andrew is thinking of working on next, visit the cgcoach thread here
Need to improve the frame texture, it reads as terra cotta rather than copper.
i find this model a bit confusing.. where the biker is supposed to be? how would he steer?
and most of all i miss the scale of the whole, it seems both a tricycle and a giant van.
looks amateur, but its getting there. I’m with hdudh… i didnt register copper as a material in the piece at all. I see no metal or leather or wood. I’m unsure what the mats are.
Keep at it.
@jazzroy: The image contains a scale in the right hand corner; in terms of the actual model, Andrew has worked from an original concept design by Feng Zhu (linked in the article), so the lack of apparent seating is not by his design.
@hdudh: That may be partially due to the render style that Andrew appears to be going for (though, yes, the actual machine doesn’t look very metallic…)
With this plough on the front of the machine, I fear that it will be stopped by the first stone encountered on its path !o)
For the textures, I agree with hdudh and steve : they need more work in my opinion.
I hate writing negative comments about works, but I don’t see this render as a gallery quality image.
I can`t see what is so special about this render ,,, Is it my noobie eye ??!!
While the model captures many details of the concept, it does not seem to capture the nature of the concepted vehicle. The concept is more slender, less sturdy and almost ragged with the clunky widely spaced fins on the exposed engine and the exhaust pipes coming slightly apart.
This would all be fine, if not for the fact that while the proportions and feel of the concept is “cool”, I find the model less successful.
It may just be one of those “does not actually work i 3d”-things, but it does not look like a coherent reinterpretation to me.
I agree with Yoff, and don’t understand why this is considered Beautifully rendered nor fascinating.
Sorry but for me is completely forgettable.
It is not badly done though, it is just not gallery worth
Ah well, even as an Art Editor, I’m still human and can submit pieces that not everyone likes; I won’t explain my reasons for choosing this piece, but I will tell you my criteria for selecting a piece.
Generally when I assess a work, I assess it on a balance of the following critical criteria:
– Unique Concept: a piece would preferably showing a unique and original concept, or a unique take on a common/pre-existing concept.
– Model/Texturing Technical Merit: as long as the concept has been developed in a crafted fashion, and it demonstrates the concept relatively effectively, it doesn’t have to be technically perfect, in the same way that 2D cartoons do not have to be technically perfect to effectively demonstrate their concept.
– Lighting, Colour and Composition: a model could be the most detailed sculpture of the city of New York, right down to every single building, with HDR textures spanning GBs of data, but if I can’t see it, neither can anyone else. Additionally if the artist introduces colours (I don’t mean just textures) that are inconsistent with the palette of the style, without reason (reds coming out randomly in blue-green or grey palettes are the most noticeable) then you’ve ruined a perfectly good piece. Finally, the composition (including the angle of the shot, overlays and post-processing), while entirely subjective, needs to really make the scene; what does this is entirely a piece-by-piece assessment.
All the rules, of course, can be bent, and there are a hundred other minor criteria I assess on, but those are the key ones that generally lead me to selecting a piece.
It’s desert-punk lol, awesome model
nice work @ndy
:)
@rpgmaster I think that with as much detail as it has, it should look functional. I agree with the idea that a cartoon doesn’t need to look functional, but a cartoon also has much less detail. If you were to make an obvious connection for the back wheel, it would, in my opinion, look a lot better. That being said, it looks great, keep up the good work! The texturing is great.
I had mixed opinion with this.
The design is very wacky, almost unusable, but then its not the modeller’s original design. I also dislike the brightness of the model against the almost black background.
I do like the surrealistic effect though.
Heya All,
I’m the guy who produced the art and thought I’d write a response to all the comments. First up I always appreciate crit, it can only make my art better, so thank you for all who took the time to write some comments.
hdudh: The metal/rock/wierd materials I went for aren’t ‘real’ metal materials that exist today, they are a mixture of a whole lot of different influences. The effect is supposed to make you think of a substance you may have seen but you shouldn’t be able to exactly identify which, i.e. confuse your mind between real materials and something that doesn’t exist yet. It should make you try and imagine what it could be.
jazzroy: In my view the concept would be a robotic vehicle so no driver required, as for scale as rpgsimmaster mentioned there is a scale reference in the corner.
steve: Yeah, same as for hdudh, the materials were meant to be like that.
rpgsimmaster: Thanks again for putting my piece up, it’s much appreciated. Sorry I didn’t comment untill now, didn’t see the post lol :)
ROUBAL: Yeah as for the front that was an issue I looked at in the modelling process, I decided to match the concept rather than adjust it. I suppose one could summise that the joint between the front and rear sections of the bike could rotate to lift the grill up. Thanks for your comment I do appreciate it :)
blabeen, yoff, Juan Romero: Fair enough… I hear what you are saying, it may not be perfect and perhaps as yoff says not the best 2d to 3d transission, it may have been better to alter the shape. The slenderness is a point I wasn’t completely happy about.
rpgsimmaster: Yeah, kudos man. Suppose I can’t please everyone *grins*.
Funkyoshi: Thanks dude :)
wayne: Hey bro, thanks man!
Thomas: The connection to the wheel was another thing I wasn’t altogether happy with, it happens to be on the other side of the bike, but with angle required to see the part I built to connect the wheel and the bike made the whole render wierd. Out of interest if you want to see the whole model, it’s on the cgcoach thread. Thanks re texturing it was fun :)
ralmon: I played around with soooo many background options it drove me nuts, finally I choose pure black as it actually, out of the things I tried, suited it best :) Thanks re effect!
Thanks again to everyone who commented. I don’t expect my art to please everybody but it’s good to know what people think so I can better my skills!
Cheers
Andrew
Very nice sketch!
I like it :) The one thing I really think is missing is dust; If this is a desert piece, and certainly a worn one, then it should absolutely have dust on the tires, on the body and buildup in places. Even if cleaned, it would be impossible to remove all the dust of the desert.
I quite like it! Great job!
This post seems to be fantastic and I would achieve some thing or the other from this post. That’s for sure. Thank you for the post and looking more from you.