The Scarab
3D concept art for an armoured, beetle-inspired vehicle built to travel through the asteroid belt.
Concept
A vehicle for the asteroid belt, where surviving matters more than speed.
The brief was to make our own spaceship and build a story around it. I set it in the asteroid belt, so the ship had to be built to survive, not to look fast. The design is based on the scarab beetle: armoured, compact and low to the ground. The mechanical parts are there for function, not decoration.
Process
Twenty-five silhouettes before building in 3D.
I started with 25 silhouette explorations in Photoshop, setting angular shapes against organic ones to see what actually could be built to survive. From there I picked one and moved into 3D, to test whether the shape held up in three dimensions.
Iterations
The chosen silhouette felt protective and threatening at once.
Of the 25, this was the only one that looked protective and threatening at the same time. I built three block-outs in 3D Coat to see how it changed from flat shape to volume, then combined the strongest parts of each.
Final
A compact, armoured vehicle made to endure.
The final model combines the best parts of the three block-outs. I rendered it in KeyShot to bring out the materials and lighting.
Key Takeaways
The silhouette stage is where the real decisions happen.
- 01
Starting with silhouettes instead of jumping straight into 3D forced me to nail the shape first.
- 02
Building three versions and combining the best parts worked better than committing to one.
- 03
Designing for function first kept the mechanical details from turning into decoration.