UPDATE:
Rocker panel and rear quarter panel started. I’m going to save the front end for last. I think I’m going to have a hard time with it.
Hey! it looks like it’s going well for you so far, can’t really critique it too much at the moment though. I think I can say that you shouldn’t really worry about the materials and textures just yet though. Don’t worry about rendering it until you have the whole car and a proper lighting set up. With that being said, if this is the lighting set up you’re going for in the final render I would try and tweak it a bit more. Feels like it needs a bit more bounce. But it’s hard to say because the model isn’t done. So just try and get most of the model completed before worrying.
Keep on at it! Car models are fun.
Reality Fox,
No, these aren’t final material or lighting settings, but I wanted to be somewhat close in order to help point out flaws along the way. For example, at the rear, I can see that from the top edge down to the fuel door the mesh is too flat and needs to be fixed. I didn’t really notice that in the 3d view port with solid shading selected.
Thanks for your suggestions though and when you see something that doesn’t look right, please point it out. My material and lighting skills are not good, so I will be asking for help with that as I get closer to being done with the modeling.
I’m throwing out these renders to get as much help as I can with the mesh as I go along. If I wait until I’m done, the problem areas may be too messed up to fix and I want to keep from having to completely redo an area if possible.
im sorry. if I didnt it would have come to several hours long 
ThorntonStrolia,
No, no need to appologize, I appreciate the tutorial. I just have a hard time following time lapse tutorials, but I’ll get it. It just might take me a few times watching it. For example, I understand that you model it with curves then render it out, but I’ll have to watch it again to understand why there are two black planes. Now, I haven’t watched it all the way through yet, so maybe it’ll be obvious to me after I watch it all the way through. Heck, there may not be two black planes, my eyes were darting all over to see what you were doing!
Again, I really do appreciate the tutorial!
BTW, the Viper looks amazing!
UPDATE: Working on the rear end. Still need to tweek the bumper to body seam and clean up some edges on the bumper too. Next is the tail lights, exhaust exits and spoiler on the trunk. Any advice on modeling and texturing the tail lights would be appreciated. I don’t want them to be just textured planes. I want to model the reflectors and other innards.
I’m really not looking forward to modeling the front end. Getting this far has taken me forever.
I know the rear brake caliper is facing the wrong way. I appended the wheel from my tire .blend without creating two different groups with the differences first. I’ll fix that later.
Looking great so far! I’m impressed with your progress!! I see a discontinuity between the filler cap lid and the rest of the body’s side. Also the rear bumper panel doesn’t seem to flow quite right with the side. You can see this near the back of the rear wheel well; those strong arcs of the wheel well aren’t visible in the bumper panel like they are in this image: http://mustangforums.com/forum/members/rcaponong-albums-2005-mustang-gt-picture1793-2005-mustang-gt-07-26-2008.jpg
Goldenfrog,
You are definately right about the wheel well flair on the bumper. I need to check the edge loops there. I duplicated the lower edge of the body to start the bumper so the creases should be there.
I’ll also take a look at the filler lid. That area gave me a little problem from the get go and it looks like I didn’t win the fight. I’m actually quite surprised that the panels are turning out as smooth as they have. My topology is HORRIBLE on this thing. Thanks for the crits, I appreciate it.
I’ll tell you, things that seem to take you guys an hour to do, take me three hours and a few beers!:mad:
Looks extremely clean. Good job!
Thanks IconW, I appreciate the comment. Yeah, it may look clean rendered, but if you’ll notice, I haven’t posted any wires lately.
no:
UPDATE: Not a lot to show, but here you go. Worked on the rear end some this weekend. Started on the tail lights, but they have a ways to go. I haven’t modeled any of the inards of the tail lights yet so the lens material is translucent at the moment instead of transparent.
It also looks like I need to correct some issues with the air foil as it is sitting to low to the trunk lid.
UPDATE: Started on the inside of the tail lights. Still need the light bulbs and need to figure out how to texture the lower portion of the lens.
Well, shoot. After looking at this render, I can see that the rear end is WAY off. Looks like I’m in for some major
rework.:mad:
Nice progress so far,Will u be doing the interior?
Time Keeper,
I want to do the interior, but it has taken quite a while to get to this stage already. Hopefully I can stick to it to do the interior as well. I’m not what you would call a speedy modeler.
Ok, made some changes to the rear end. You might not notice the difference, but it was pretty obvious to me that the trunk deck and rear fender were not shaped properly. Still needs some tweeking here and there, but I’ll start on the front end next, and then the badging and weather trim details after that. This is a small jpeg of the render. Sorry for the low resolution.
Oooo yeah!! The taillight shaders are spot on. Good modeling+materials=good taillights. I feel like there’s something wrong with the rear bumper. Like…it doesn’t curve smoothly around from the side to the back, it just kinda has a right angle there. I don’t know if it’s supposed to look like that but it stood out to me. Looking great though, and for a first attempt this is far better than anything i’ve seen for a while!
Goldenfrog,
Thanks for the comments. I still need to tweek the tail lights some, but I’m happy with the way they are turning out.
On the rear bumper, that crease is supposed to be there. Actually, I don’t have it sharp enough. There definately are plenty of areas that I just don’t have right, but I need to move forward and get the front end modeled and then revisit areas that need more attention.
Thanks again for your input, and keep the crits coming! I need to hear from you guys in order to get better at this!
Ah! I knew I should’ve checked reference images before I critiqued the bumper! Here are some critiques I came up with, some of them rather nit-picky.
Goldenfrog,
You are absolutely correct about the things you pointed out. I started out with to dense of a mesh and have gotten things a bit bumpy in places and the cut out for the trunk deck brake light is giving me fits as far as the bevel area you pointed out. I think I’ll just remove the cutout and start over.
Not sure what I’m going to do about the bumpy areas. It seams the more I mess with it, the worse it gets.:mad:
Keep the crits coming!