just floating an idea at the moment

[andy_k]

as several of you know already I'm a freelance "3D artist" - using computer graphics to create photo realistic images.

Although most of the stuff I do involves working on commercial projects I've sold a few prints of my artwork in the past and got to wondering if there would be any interest in a series of Merc images.

A3 images, professionally printed on high quality paper will be priced at £9.99 each inclusing p&p to the UK. I can also offer a framing service if required at pretty competitive rates.

the image shown above is just as a sample, the 3D model of the 190 is one I did for a game a while back and as such is not 100% accurate - although it will be before they are printed properly and offered for sale.

If there's enough interest I'll do a series of Mercs, some modern, some historic and probably keep them all as limited editions. These models take a while to build so they will not all be released at the same time - probably 1 per month or bi monthly.

Any feedback?



Andy

 

[miro]

Any feedback?

Andy

Wouldnt it just be easier to take a photo of an existing car and just pay someone to change the scenery ?

I once met a man who drew a woman in photoshop from scratch. It took him about a week. The same effect cvould be attained by taking 3 photos of 3 different women and blending the images together in a few hours.

 

[andy_k]

not really - taking "studio" quality photographs is a massive and extremely expensive and time consuming job involving some pretty complex logistics. A 3D artist can put a car anywhere in the world (given enough background resources) without ever leaving their desk. Paying an artist for a couple of weeks work costs a lot less than setting up a location shoot for one day

I've just finished working on a project for Namco to publicise a forthcoming game, in it, we "filmed" a car chase scene through down town LA with cars travelling at 100mph+ through the town - the final 30 second clip took a bank of 200 computers nearly 3 weeks to render to film with something like 3000 man hours going into the project from artists around the globe all contributing various elements and that still worked out cheaper and more practical for Namco than attempting to film the whole thing and not a single law was broken, street closed or car damaged

Andy

 

[Sp!ke]

not really - taking "studio" quality photographs is a massive and extremely expensive and time consuming job involving some pretty complex logistics. A 3D artist can put a car anywhere in the world (given enough background resources) without ever leaving their desk. Paying an artist for a couple of weeks work costs a lot less than setting up a location shoot for one day

I've just finished working on a project for Namco to publicise a forthcoming game, in it, we "filmed" a car chase scene through down town LA with cars travelling at 100mph+ through the town - the final 30 second clip took a bank of 200 computers nearly 3 weeks to render to film with something like 3000 man hours going into the project from artists around the globe all contributing various elements and that still worked out cheaper and more practical for Namco than attempting to film the whole thing and not a single law was broken, street closed or car damaged

Andy

Bloody interesting job you have there Andy. Tell us more....

As for the pictures, they sound expensive - what kind of money (roughly) would we be looking at per image?

 

[Steve_Perry]

...As for the pictures, they sound expensive - what kind of money (roughly) would we be looking at per image?

...A3 images, professionally printed on high quality paper will be priced at £9.99 each inclusing p&p to the UK. I can also offer a framing service if required at pretty competitive rates...

Andy, if you were to do a circa 1998 W202 Saloon in Vivianite Green, then I'd be tempted

S.

 

[andy_k]

Spike,

Yeah, it's a fun job that grew out of a hobby. I've been playing with 3D graphics for a long time now, but over the last couple of years it's become more of a job and less of a hobby.

The project I referred to above was for the new release of Street Racing Syndicate, I provided a couple of the car models and background scenes for the TV ads (nissan skyline and mazda rx7 and the workshop on the website) and did all the 3D work for the press/web advertising (although not the website design) and the packaging

http://srs.namco.com/

Steve, as for forthcoming models, yes the C class is on the list of cars to do but as it's still on the list I hadn't decided on which colour

Once the 3D model is built changing the colour is pretty easy it's just down to the costs of printing. I need to get them printed in batches of 50 in order to keep the costs at a sensible. I'm not sure of the price of a one off digital print (not inkjet as they tend to fade a bit too quickly) but it's something I'll look into if there's enough demand.

All this is still at the planning stage - I'm just looking at all the possibilities and potential demand

Andy

 

[pammy]

Very interesting occupation there fella

I'd be interesetd - but I think the main prob you'll have is that ppl will want a pic that looks like their car so batch runs of 50 or more might prove difficult to shift - unless you plan on a broader marketing strategy

 

[Ian B Walker]

I could be interested here. Lets see how it goes. :bannana: :bannana:

 

[andy_k]

cheers for the feedback so far folks,

Pammy, yes I agree that I will need to broaden the marketing, I've already got a couple of outlets I can use - local retailers and ebay

Modelling specific cars wasn't really my idea - it's more an idea to produce marque/model images to appeal to enthusiasts. Yes, the SLK is on the list of cars but I may do the new model if I can get enough decent reference material.

Of course I can produce very specific and customised models - but they come at a price

the custom Skyline here (mentioned earlier in the thread)

http://www.andykay.org.uk/samples/001.jpg
http://www.andykay.org.uk/samples/003.jpg

or the Cobra here

http://www.andykay.org.uk/pages/427cobra/cobra.html

were both commercial projects with the car models working out at about £1600 each - so that's kind of out the question unless people are incredibly keen to see a one off picture of their car.

Andy

 

[lotusmark2]

Would go for a SMART car with the colours as per my sig

 

[andy_k]

first of the prints are now available on ebay or direct from me

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3736187036

next on the list will probably be a Smart.

Andy

 

[Tan]

Andy is the 129 series SL on your list?
My car is always available to do a bit of modelling should you require it

 

[lotusmark2]

Keep me informed on the Smart, is it going to be blue and silver by any chance??

 

[guydewdney]

shirly you can change the colur quite easily? or does that involve a re-strt on the rendering (out of curiosity, how long, after the model is 'built' does the rendering / ray tracing take? I used to do 3d designs of plane bits, and the 3d rendering took about half an hour!

 

[andy_k]

I can change the colour of the model very easily rendering at print resolution takes about 2 hours on my 3ghz machine - it's a very detailed model and the polygon count (1.7 million) is fairly high with a lot of glass and reflective materials all contributing to render times

it's the cost of printing, the smaller the volume of prints I have done the more each one costs. At the moment, it wouldn't be economical to do a single print for less than £25 - but I'm working on getting the costs reduced

Andy

 

[miro]

OK its small and only has 600cc but will yours do 70mpg

So what you are saying is that it does 35 miles on a tank.

 

[lotusmark2]

Ok I'll bite on this one, 33 litre tank 70 mpg gives a range of 513 mile