Better Days - PR.01
This blog post was originally published on the previous version of Rocketcoil.com on August 11, 2017
2022 – Project PR.01 is introduced in the last quarter of the Synoris Championship. It comes second to last in the championship due to many mechanical failures
2023 – Project PR.01 wins it’s first race in the championship (two in total). Charismatic drivers – Ian Quinn and Skylar Walker, combined with great PR ensure PR.01 gains fandom quickly. It gets nicknamed “Firestorm” due to many failures of the last year championship ending in fire, besides the (now signature) backfiring.
2025 – Project PR.01 – now unofficially adopting the name “Firestorm”- comes second in the championship, the last match being the deciding.
2026 – Project PR.01 gets destroyed beyond repair in a massive crash at the 14th match (out of 22) in the championship, causing it’s retirement. To this point, PR.01 was winning the ’26 championship.
2027 – Project PR.01 gets restored with the name “Firestorm” and is put into the museum as one of the most influential racers of its (short) time.
2029 – Firestorm gets stolen from the museum.
2032 – The picture was taken.
2033 – ???
The story behind this image starts way differently than what we see. For my own portfolio I wanted to add a product render of a fictional object. Over time the story behind the object came to be, however, it was much more interesting than the product render I just made. I couldn’t leave it at that. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
As I was making the “original” version - a product render - I faced a challenge of the flow of the shapes. The boxy nature of the initial design didn’t work well with the elegant flow of the bonnet and fenders. In order to turn this problem into a beautiful solution, I added the “fins” on the front and extended the gas tank out of the engine compartment. I added the exhaust pipes just underneath it to further take the flow of the shape into elegant design.
After this beautiful sports vehicle was created, it was time to turn it into a story. I was and still am a fan of "distressed” art, so, art that already bears a story. I decided to add significant damage to the vehicle and turn a product render into a movie-like narrative. The fact that this vehicle already looked somewhat unrealistic helped a lot.
First I had to break up the shapes. Many of the 3D modeled surfaces had to be virtually remodeled. I had to be careful with my approach to it in order not to make myself more work, which tends to happen quickly when you work with 3D. I had many many different parts in this scene, and each one of them had to be prepared for this new challenge ahead of me. In the end it was worth the while.
After I was done with preparation, I had to make the materials work. Due to the number of parts it took a long time, but it had to be done to support the story. I used volumetric lighting for the rays to show on the final render, and I had to build up a scene. It came out pretty nicely and I’m glad people saw a story in the image.