This project centered around developing both my design sense with a SciFi language, as well as work on my overall draftsmanship. All things were centered around fitting with either a militarized antagonist, or a wandering hero.
I found that I often fall back on blocky shapes when confronted with doing new things, which is something I’ll work on. Helpful critique I received told me a few things:
- SciFi often is elaborately crazy. Push your shape and design language as far as you can, then tone down to the realistic level that you want. Realism, however, is often times more attributed to the level of texture, detail, and lighting finish, rather than only based on proportions.
- SciFi is often all about the bevel. Curve your metals and edges in appropriate places. Further study and practice will give you an eye for where bevels are often needed. Modern technology is rarely sharp edged (remotes, game controllers, cars, etc…)
- We live in SciFi, find the coolest objects and play with their proportions or combinations. For example, jet fighter helmets look insane currently, there’s almost nothing you’d have to do to make it look futuristic. We can see the future today.
- Always consider the functional question or theme of your design. Why do they need this? Exaggerate and play off the function, however ridiculous (a fun example of this is the mind reading helmet from back to the future. It’s such a memorable idea because it plays of the idea that he wants to amplify the power of his brain!)
- You don’t have to make it function! You have to keep the function in mind to allow it to show it was inspired by, or seeks to fulfill, some sort of purpose. We don’t make things for nothing!
- Keep your tech consistent. Notice how I messed up my Hovering Semi-Truck by giving it older looking equipment but very new looking hover pads, this would be far more effective if I made the hover pads also look to be an “older model” by changing the sleekness of the simple circle.
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