The spiffy showroom image:
The moody nostalgic action shot:
This is a model of the 1980s-era battery-powered lantern my parents had when I was growing up. (They might still have it. I don’t know.) It was big, weighed a ton when it full of D-cells, the flashlight was mediocre at best, and if you bumped the middle “horn” switch, you’d scare the shit out of yourself with a loud buzzer. However, it had flashing red-yellow lights so you could put it on your head and pretend to be a police car. It had, supreme novelty of novelties, a portable fluorescent lamp (!!!). In the '80s and '90s before blue LEDs meant low-power flashlights were a dime a dozen, that was something.
It’s my nostalgia trip, to the point that I’ve managed to snatch up two already at yard sales, and the good one’s breaking so I’ve got my eyes out for another one. It’s unbranded and unlabeled-- just a UK design patent number, granted to “Fee Tat Holdings” of Hong Kong-- so it’s nearly impossible to find information or sales on on the Internet.
This is the third time, now, that I’ve tried to do a 3D model of this one. The first time I was still pretty fresh using Blender and it was kind of a disaster. The second time, I was only working with a ruler, so the numerous thick walls and little features were difficult to measure and proportion right and it came out awkwardly. Now I’ve finally gotten calipers, and this is the perfect chance to use them. It makes those “how thick is this plastic” questions a breeze.
I’ve still got to do the back side strap-- I managed to get a weave texture I like-- the side horn grille, and make a pared-down lower-poly version. (This one is a bit excessive at 7k faces/15k triangles.) Also, the state it’s in doesn’t jibe with reality. The lights flash back and forth, so both wouldn’t be on at one time, and you can only have the fluorescent light or the flashlight on at one time, and, all the switches are off. Then, put it in a better composition than “everything splayed out!”.
Colophon:
All models and materials (except images) were made by me in Blender-- first 3.4, and moving to 3.6. The render was done in Cycles, and the film grain was added in Photoshop/Camera Raw. Images were made in Adobe Illustrator.
The “Aim-Hi! Draft Root Beer” can was a stock element, an original design, created for other projects. “The Lipsum” book was an original stock element created for this project.
Stock Images
- The image on “The Lipsum” is “Old Chest” by Linnaea Mallette - https://www.publicdomainpictures.net/en/view-image.php?image=291896&picture=old-chest
Fonts
- Switch labels on the lantern: Gothic No. 13
- “The Lipsum” text: Friz Quadrata, with a smidge of Swiss721 (Bitstream knockoff of Helvetica)
- Bookmark: Souvenir
(I don’t recall what fonts were used on the can, and I don’t have that file in front of me at the moment.)
