Cool models.
In this last one I suppose you are doing all decals in photoshop so they only work on that view?
Have you considered UV unwrapping your model instead and then apply the decals directly on place?
You could try wrapr for that… It’s very cool.
Or probably using png logos 0,1mm away from the face of the model?
Nice! But how to you manage working in Photoshop without giving the layers meaningful names?!
Depends on the project, for this particular one the car is getting built in real life, I am making the components to size for fabrication so the version with decals is just something fun for me.
I don’t usually render unless I am getting paid for it you see, I prefer to illustrate in Photoshop for personal projects. However if I was going to unwrap it I would probably do it in Blender. Only because if I am going to the trouble of UV mapping, I would take SketchUp out of the equation and use Substance Painter/Unreal Engine.
I have used Wrap VR however, it’s really great, I would love to see some native mapping tools one day!
I am just sketching for now as the model is not finished, the freelance part of the project is fabrication so I was just rushing through some sketching.
When I go back I will group and colour code the layers too, its easy to get out of hand and go far beyond 150 layers sometimes, then it get’s really interesting…
As an actual product, or as a show piece or movie prop?
Functional prop. In this case I was only asked to create the faux ceramic armour blocks on the chassis. But the client also wanted some illustrations and concepts + some for me. I will ask what I am allowed to post of the car this week
My job at the moment is the sides, as you can see the front is mostly complete, also one of the reasons I did not do a like for like version, it was already complete. I can post this image at least as it’s already released publicly by my client.
Couldn’t resist re-purposing the model for one of my own projects I am working on this year. A short Graphic Novel set in a near future dystopian Gothenburg (Sweden).
I did a breakdown of my Photoshop layers if it’s of interest to anybody. All in all I think it’s about 180 layers. However, in order to make it easier to display I grouped them into sections such as ‘glass’ and ‘paint’ etc. Using SketchUp rather than pure Photoshop is a lot easier as I can do all of this with a laptop trackpad rather than the old fashioned way of using a mouse and my Graphics Tablet. I try and be sofa surfer worker rather than sitting at a desk as much as possible 
Reflections are created using a mixture of gradients and blending modes but of it’s not easy to show those in such a flat image. I will be doing a big deep dive on illustration techniques for my Basecamp talk later this year.
Oh, well, in that case, I’ll just have to go to Basecamp this year!
and then client asks you to rotate a little bit model
The beauty is that for the most part none of my clients know that I use 3D models as my base so it’s not even an option for them 
The Pacific Rim poster competition submission period is now over and you can see the rest of the entries here: See artwork submitted to Create artwork for Pacific Rim Uprising
Here is some raw Sketchup output.
This is just linework and shadow layers combined. I took around 8 different shadow images and then combine them for dramatic effect.
This model took a while, I think about 2 months (but I was working at the time and living on a boat). I will be releasing this in September at basecamp as part of my talk so folks can have a go at rendering it or what not and I will do a breakdown then.
I love this.
did you use MSPhysics?
No, I doubt Sketchup could cope with any sort of particle simulation of this sort, at least on my machine.
Just lots of repeated truss sections and manual placement. I am cleaning up the model at the moment and then I will give it away and see if anybody can render it. I built the scene with the express intention of illustrating it with Photoshop so it’s very unnecessarily large.
It’s also been designed to work only from this angle so lots of mess going on inside.
Edit:
I do want to go back and try this with MSPhysics however, as I made the spinning rotor effect in Photoshop but it would be fun to try and do it within SKP.
