Car Trim
Trim - Hood Ornament
Hey... anyone want to learn how to model a plane? Haha! Just kidding. I'm not going to change gears completely here, but I thought I'd say that considering that the hood ornament I'm about to throw onto the front of my Bel Air here is decidedly plane-like... In fact, it probably isn't a bad start for anyone into modeling planes as well, so keep that in mind for your next plane project!
This is another step that involves starting with a basic spline to project onto the car geometry so that we can use the resultant points to create geometry that conforms to the existing model.
Start by drawing an elongated strip with a spline in the top view (down the very middle of the hood... and make sure the spline points are equal in number and symmetrical on each side of the hood centerline).
The spline object should be set to Linear, with Intermediate points set to none. I'll explain the reasoning in just a minute...
Move the spline into position above the hood. (if you drew it from the top view, it should already be positioned correctly in the X and Z axes, but you want to move it along the Y axis in this step so that it appears fully above the hood object. (This ensures projection will work as expected.)
Project the spline to the XZ axis, and it is transferred to the top surface of the hood object. With any luck, we used enough spline points so that the projected spline is interpolated across the surface of the hood without much of the spline cutting through hood surface.
Now use the structure manager to copy and paste the points into the structure of an empty polygon object...
Remember the reasoning behind the "Linear Spline/ Intermediate Points None" I said I'd explain? The reason is this: If you have intermediate points (on a bezier spline for example), the points can not be copied and pasted as points into a polygon object... but using Linear/None, you CAN.
And in doing so, you can then bridge these points in the polygon object to form polygons. So essentially, you used the spline projection as a means to get base points where you wanted them and from there you could start to model real geometry...
Here, the base points have just been bridged to form a strip of polygons on the hood surface.
Select all the polygons and use the bevel tool to raise the chrome stripping top surface and give it a nice generally rounded thickness.
Select a few less of the polygons (in this case, I simply deselected the most narrow polygons at the rear of the strip and the smallest polygon at the front of the strip).
By using the bevel tool again on the smaller selection of polygons, you can add a second layer of thickness to the existing chrome strip that is offset slightly inward on the front and back ends... (There's no reason to do this, really... I just liked the style...)
Now select one of the polygons near the front and extrude it to form a narrow pedestal that will be the transition from the hood strip to the actual hood ornament.
You can see in the picture that I have thus far neglected using a smoothing tag on this polygonal object...
Rotate the top polygon of hte pedestal until it is level (planar to the X and Z axes). Then extrude it again to about the same height as the polygon is wide... (so the front and back faces of the newly extruded part are square).
Select the back face of this extrusion and extrude it out on the Z axis so it sweeps back over the hood stripping. Use the scale normal tool to decrease the sixe of the polygon face so that as it sweeps back, the shape of the ornament becomes gradually tapered.
Apply the same principle to the front face of that extrusion...
Extrude the polygon out on the Z axis, but use the normal scale tool to slightly increase the size of the polygon. The result is a nice aerodynamic shape that tapers nicely from rounded front to pointed back.
Now, that's just great so far, but every good hood ornament needs wings. :-)
Select the side polygons of the top box-shape, and do an extrude inner to differentiate them slightly from the main object, then extrude outwards to form the basic wing shape.
Here, a normal scale action is used so that the tips of the wings are tapered more to a point. After all, I want this hood ornament to be supersonic looking...
Move the selected end polygons back on the Z axis so that the wing shapes are swept towards the back of the ornament. This gives the ornament an even more radical look. (In case anyone is wondering, I really am modeling this based on a photo I have of a similar hood ornament. I know some of you were doubting whether something like this would be present on the front of ANY car!!!)
Now, in an effort to further sculpt the hood ornament, I am going to add some tailfins on to the wing surfaces.
Some knifecuts about 65% of the way to teach wingtip can be used to create thin polygons where they are needed for tailfin extrusion purposes.
Select the top polygons we just made on the wing surface, and extrude twice (the first time just a sliver to create a sharp edge).
When the tailfin is the height you want, use scale normal to taper the end of the fins down a bit, then sweep them back a little.
Here you can see I have returned to select each end polygon on both the tailfins and wingtips. I used the bevel tool once more on these polygons to sharpen the edges.
This is a personal preference thing, of course...
And rendering that thing with the chrome texture kind of puts me in mind of the old Blind Faith album, but I despite that it makes a pretty decent hood ornament.
Uhhh... well, this isn't the most flattering view... :-)
Now we can move on to a similar exercise, and deck the car out with the chrome crests (or logos) in much the same way.