Vehicle Design Approaches Part 1 - Fundamental Aspects

To give me a decent set of functional assets i'm going to begin by creating the rough version of the character's vehicle and a few enemy crafts. These assets are going to serve as high polys if I decide i'm happy with the designs. 

For the overall style of my game I want to have a lot of character and some exaggeration to really help everything stand out. My idea for the main vehicle is to have it tell a story about how the characters use it and have it reflect some of their personality, but my initial research is looking into finding the key aspects that make up certain types of vehicles to make them relatable to their real world counterparts.

The first point of research is looking at Scott Robertson's methods for creating his vehicle designs. In his book ''How to draw - Drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination'' he talks about how researching into how the type of vehicle functions is an important part of the process and this can help ground the designs in reality. An example for this would be looking into what makes an aircraft fly and finding what key visual aspects are required for the thing to actually fly. [Scott Robertson 2013] Page 123-125

Fig 1

I've created a quick example of how adding key visual details can help with the design.

In Fig 1 it's very obvious which of the 2 crafts is the faster. Even though the models are very basic the addition of the air intakes and change in body shape suggest that the right-hand craft is faster.

Fig 2 - Paul Townsend (Camaro)

This idea can also be taken further and key aspects of the design can be exaggerated beyond their normal size or shape to further influence how people perceive the design. This gives the vehicle a 'cartoon-ish and exaggerated look.' [Elite Streets Magazine. 2008] 

The use of exaggeration on Fig 2 makes the Camero look incredibly powerful because of the how much of the car is engine. This also makes a great focal point for distinguishing this car from others.

References

Janicek, J.R. "Paul B. Townsend - Concept Auto Art - Elite Streets Magazine Feature Artist".Elitestreetsmagazine.com. N.p., 2016. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

Robertson, Scott. How To Draw - Drawing And Sketching Objects And Environments From Your Imagination. Culver City: Design Studio Press, 2013. Print.