https://cdn-animation.artstation.com/p/video_sources/000/854/696/turntable0001-0250.mp4
https://cdn-animation.artstation.com/p/video_sources/000/855/512/0001-0125-trim.mp4
The idea for this was to initially create a sort of communication device that someone might’ve pieced together and built for themselves.
“The Journeyman’s Communicator” or “The Soothsayer’s Communicator” were initial ideas to help the blockout phase along.
I knew I wanted it to have elements of communication and a bit of fantasy.
So the front has the whole radio needles and nixie tubes with a grammophone,
the left side has this telephone kinda thing going on which I imagined were dismantled from a working telephone but put onto this contraption so the person wouldn’t have to carry multiple things around?
on the right there’s this celestical clock thingy, which was the only bit of fantasy I thought I could’ve added, something to study or communicate with the stars… or… something. Not really sure what it is but I liked the shape and idea at the time I blocked it out.
Gathering references was important since I had no clear idea what precisely the object would look like finished. Having these references helped a lot with trying to figure out where things could be placed around.
For the Steam Gauge, Telephone and Radio numbers I thought it’d be neat to have them not be looking industrial-like with their numerals embossed in metal as my references were, but rather have them in pencil, to give a hand-made touch to the numbers; which would further help sell the effect of it being a DIY project - someone putting together stuff for themself. I created these with custom fonts and a bit of hand-drawn lines with a mouse in Photoshop. I used a few warps to make the numbers not too uniform.
For the clock’s rings I created textures with fonts too, in a way that I could easily paint them onto the mesh as a height map in Substance Painter.
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do for the rear, I thought about having some stained glass and steam/gears barely visible as a silhouette.
I’d made the texture in Substance Designer but it didn’t feel visually cohesive, I struggled with the rear design for a while before giving up and having it plain.
I’d like suggestions as to how this could’ve worked, or some other designs I could’ve tried!
Wireframe overlay:
Modelled and rendered in Blender (Cycles)
Textures/Materials created with Photoshop & Substance Painter
Soundtrack in the YT video is “Address Unknown” by The Ink Spots
Is it cause of Moonshine? I wanted to toss that name in somewhere feeling it’d sound funny to have a radio broadcasting ‘moonshine’ like silly talk.
, I liked it a lot, good job!