Ready-Aim-Oops

The modelling process was everything I feared it would be- I had to shave off certain elements of the turret to help preserve the delicate tri budget (Including those delicious side panel gun things, which will be mourned) and the circular nature was making topology tricky.

Also it came out a little less angular and sharp than I had hoped it it would look, but it did match my concepts, so maybe it just me.  I think I could have elevated some of the modelling weight by using different objects to make up larger portions of the mesh, instead of building everything from one. This not only was more expensive triangle wise, but also gave me some strange loops that had to be manually sorted out later.  I’m noticing this as a trend in my modelling lately and think it may be worth addressing- I’m much more inclined to model objects from one piece of geometry rather than use lots of simple shapes to ‘fake’ a single object. There are arguments to be made for both sides; modelling from as single object leaves less seams and strange inconsistencies where the objects meet. But also having everything from one means the topology is messier and more difficult to edit. 

 

I also had to change my idea for the pivot. I overlooked it in the design process because it didn't occur to me at the time, but the gun would also have to move up and down. My design flies- because of this it never even crossed my mind that instead of the whole machine moving up and down, the gun itself would have to- as per the brief. This meant i had to adapt from my flat purely horizontal rotation system (which didn't work anyway because I'd designed the gun at a slant, and it just didn't look right facing straight on, because then it doesn't make sense that it flies and- well you get the idea. I oopsed it. It didn't take much to adjust the design, which I did begrudgingly and with a deep set loathing for the way it made my turret look like it'd taken far too many diet pills and was bitterly missing some chunky goodness in the middle (clipping issues lalalala I can't hear you.) EITHER WAY, it works now and that's what it needs to do. Maybe the sleek look will grown on me... yeah probably not. 

It was pretty reminiscent of some of the concepts I'd turned down for not being turrety enough, or would be unable to rotate without aiming at itself, basically any of my designs that had too much decoration than hung out over the sides and went beside the gun. Also ruined any chance of having propellers on the bottom as well as the top- because how cool would that have been? I thought I'd already thought out the technical side of it but apparently not, I put a pivot ball in there instead, because that's a pretty legitimate solution to anything ever. 

I mentioned earlier that I wasn't completely satisfied with my textures, this only became more apparent during the texturing process. I found it challenging to work with white clean surfaces like I’d planned. It simply looked bland. I tried changing the hues to adapt to the problem but then it simply looked odd and lost the clean appeal it had.  However I decided something need to be done so I started adding rust and scratches around the entirety of the model and then revamping the entire style to embrace a comic-esque, outlines style and everything came together. The rust and scratches worked great with the outlines and the characterization of the turret was shifted from military and clean, to battle worn and fierce. I thought it was an entirely suitable change that still kept the core theme in check- predatory.

Bonus unwrap sheet for your viewing pleasure.