Sci-Fi Cannon Concept Art

The objective of this task is to design a sci-fi cannon, model it in 3DS Max, or Maya, and paint over a rendered finish of it in photoshop.

To begin I produced a moodboard of existing designs, which met the sic-fi cannon criteria, in order to develop an understanding of the basic form of a cannon.

Next I was told to watch an example video of what I was to produce, and the techniques I was to use:

- The video was made by the Senior Artist for Planet Side 2, Roel Jovellanos.

- 00:20 - Designed out basic features, and layered in distinct characteristics from shapes in greyscale Photoshop.

- 00.59 - Brought in the colour palette.

- 01:13 - Blocked the model in 3D into Maya using a thumbnail sketch for reference.

- 01:31 - Put in basic shapes of the colours.

- 01: 53 - Rendered out a 2D image of the 3D model, and imported it into Photoshop to begin paint-over.

- 02:10 - Brought in textures to overlay and skew onto the design for effects.

- 03:28 - Dodged in the highlights. 

With an idea of what I needed to do, I started to produce my cannon in 3DS Max:

Once I had finished modelling I then experimented a bit with lighting and how i would use it to promote the design of my cannon.

This render is an example of the light source coming from below the cannon, which i thought looked interesting, but didn't show much detail of the top.

This render had the light source coming from directly above, giving a daylight feel to the model. I like this idea but may need to change the camera angle.

After changing the camera angle and adding a second light to highlight some of the darker sections, i arrived with my final render ready for painting.

Final paint over.