Homage to Raymond Loewy- his GG1

Started by Speedster, June 28, 2012, 08:01:52 AM

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Speedster

Hi all;

Been wanting to model Raymond Loewy's famous GG1 Electric Locomotive ever since I got SolidWorks some ten years ago.  Finally figured I had acquired the skills and computer horsepower to do it, and believe me, it really taxed the limits!  The SW model is about 1.36 GB.  The KS .bip is 1.03 GB, with (in this dual version) 20,214,462 polys- my largest yet!  My own dome in HDR Light Studio Pro.  The single loco image is "Desert Sunset" from KS.  The image rendered in 48 seconds on 8 cpu's, showing the huge improvements in 3.2.36!

Raymond Loewy, as you know, was the "Father of Industrial Design", and much of our design world now is largely due to his mastery, along with that of his peer and friend Henry Dreyfuss.  (I had the privilege of working with Dreyfuss back in the late 1960's.)  His 1935 Art Deco styled Pennsylvania Railroad GG1 Electric Locomotive was an early, and many believe, one of his best designs.  It could do 100 mph all day, hauling fast and heavy passenger loads.  Many were still in service into the late 1970's.

SolidWorks 2012 Premium, KeyShot Pro 3.2.36, CS5 and FilterForge. 

Comments appreciated!  I'll post more later... 
Bill G
www.GouldStudios.com

Speedster

Forgot to mention that the green 4820 was as originally designed by Loewy, with the elegant san-serif lettering.  I modeled the lettering and stripes in SolidWorks as "split lines", which create surfaces or faces to color map, but don't actually exist as geometry. 

The tuscan red (as it was called) was a later lettering.  Since it was color mapped differently than the stripes, I simply applied  the body paint onto the original SW lettering in KS, and then applied a decal I created in Photoshop.  The Pennsy Keystone logo was also a decal. 

A tip: I pulled up a SW drawing and saved it as a jpeg, then into CS5 as a template to lay out the new lettering.

Bill G

Josh3D

JAW DROPPING GORGEOUS. So good Bill. Of course, I just love trains. Thanks for sharing your work. I think this falls under the 'Engine' category by the way :)

CAClark

Nice work, the model is great, only to my eye it doesn't real gel to the backplate. The AO renders are great too!

Cheers!

Speedster

I agree about the backplate- it's kinda like a painted mural on a wall as it relates to the model.  This is still a WPI, and I'm shopping for "just the right one".   BTW, the whole KS setup and render took about an hour!
Bill G

Dylan

I like it. Attention to detail gets top marks from me. The backplate shouldn't be a problem, adding some noise to the model or reducing the models reflections like in the second image will blend it easily with the backplate. Or do it the other way, leave the model as is and boost the contrast in the backplate to bring it closer to the models colours.

Speedster

Thanks, dillster, for the excellent advice.  I often add a bit of noise just to kill the "CAD" look, and will as I progress along.  This was just the first real render, following my quickie test, and I did not do a clown pass to separate things out, or render TIFF layers, as I also want to add a touch of blur to capture some motion.
Bill G

m2tts

Wow. Great detail. Where do you find the drawings, and or references to create the drawings from? You are doing a lot of great work documenting the history of technology and I'm always looking forward to your next efforts. Keep up the great work!

guest84672

I got a glimpse of this already a few days ago. Absolutely awesome. Gotta love the attention to detail.

feher

Your modeling skills is something else. Some of the best detail I have seen.
We need to dirty up the train some focus needs to be put on the wheels to really bring this home.
Your paint looks really good too. I think you are 85% there image wise.
Let me know if you want some help.
Tim

Speedster

Thanks, Tim! 
Dirty" material is a question I posted last week- still trying to figure out how to create (in Photoshop) that "oxidized, dirty, grimy, cruddy" painted casting look that is so common.  I have a lot of reference photos, but nothing so far has worked.  But I admit I've not tried very hard due to my work load- I fit my play time in when I can.  The photo shows it, sort of, but it's really more like an old car that's been out in the sun next to the barn!  Any advice would be appreciated!
Bill G

Deacon

WOW... that's fantastic Bill. Thinking I'm going to have to take up macrame...  ;)

Paul

Skint

Morning Bill ( UK Morning anyway ).

This is your best one to date!  Amazing detail and I love the accurate history that you put to each of your subjects.  I`m not as fussy as some on these boards, but I do understand the backplate matching issues... but for me I love this as it is too.. it has that lovely Art Deco feel to it.  Great stuff !!

I would love to get hold of some of your models.. get them uploaded onto your site :)

Skint

Speedster

Hi Skint;
Thanks for the kind comments!  I really want to honor and do justice to Mr. Loewy, as he had such a huge impact on Industrial Design.  Most of my models are available on TurboSquid- just search Gould Studios.  GG1 not up yet, but soon.  You can also see them on my website www.GouldStudios.com.
Bill G

feher

Hi Bill,
I'm thinking the only way you are going to get that type of look is using a mudBox type of software. That is were you paint on the part and it creates the texture map for you in the end. Then you apply it in Keyshot. I don't think using a generic map that tiles will get that look you want.
Just something to look into if you like.
Tim