Chevrolet 1957 Sport Sedan

[tiberius]

I love it! I knew it was just a matter of time before you did the 57.

[mindwarps]

Greate work as usual Palat.

[sarN]

hey dan, looking so sweet. i love that little square window and the rockets on the hood just make this car! i have been busy recording music and sleeping (schoolwork?) but still find some time for modeling. i love that gray color, cant wait to see this finished!

by the way, my dads best friend just bought one of those new 2007 shelby gt-500's. i cant wait to go for a ride in it!

[palat]

DrumBoPing - Sorry man, did not answer your question.
All my models are basically lowpoly because i tweak them a lot even after completion. I will post an unsmoothed wire of the Chevy when done.

tiberius - in fact i was avoiding this particular car due to the freebie model... but blessed be the opportunity (-:

mindwarps - hej man, thanks a lot!

sarN - hi man, glad to hear from you. The square vent windows are a TriChevy trademark and the rockets ("bombsight" is a third term) are a love-or-hate feature. They replaced the "jetbird" to avoid enhancing the center of the hood and thus helping make the car look wider.
Good ride on the Shelby, and be sure to fasten your seat belt!

Updates on the model, tweaked a bit the whell arch lips, textured the anodized panel on the rear quarters and the headlight bezels, added the golden grill, merged wipers and mirrors from the 56, borrowed the freebie's Chevrolet scripts (they are very detailed and i would not redo them unless they were coarse), modeled the "Bel Air" lettering on the anodized panels in the same fashion of the aforementioned scripts, added the back license plate. Exterior almost done, on with the interior. Seats first.

[Bumper3D]

I love it!

I'm not a huge fan of American cars, but I've always loved these 50s beauty queens... '57 Bel Air especially... It's just wonderfully good looking.
And so is your model. It's always a huge joy to me to see a new thread from you, as your cars are always top quality!

Keep them coming!

[Tol@te]

What a car,what a model!
I love the 57 Sport Sedan.

What about a 58 Chevy?Ever thought of that?

[Johnas]

Gorgeous work what else I could say

[palat]

Silent][Moebius - Optical overkill for sure, but think of a time when cars were not white, silver, metal grey or black, as most are around here. In those days you could have it in yellow, green, blue, red, whatever. The streets were surely more colorful!

Bumper3D and FlashG - Thanks!

Tol@te - The 57 Sport Sedan is on the way, as soon as i finish this here 4-door. As for the 58, many have demanded that i model it. To paraphrase Brian Eno in "King's Lead Hat": It will come, it will come, it will surely come...

Eventually i could model all Chevy sedans from 1950 through 1960, tweaking the 52 model for the earlier years and using the 53 to do a 54. The 58 and 60 would be scratchmade of course. But first i have to finish my open wips (which i incidentally now feature in my gallery as a constant reminder that they await completion...)

And here is a wire:



I tweaked the headlights and updated the large image.

[Tol@te]

Eventually i could model all Chevy sedans from 1950 through 1960

Thats a really good idea!All Sedans but please include the cheaper versions:150,210,Biscayne and not to forget Bel-Air and Impala for the chromed out battleships.
That would be my dream+blueprints from all of them.

regards

[nb]

Dan,

The model is very nice looking, and seems to be rather accurate; at least comparing the renders with the image of the car I have in my head I can't point out any discrepancies.

Visually it seems that there are some strange reflections on the left bottom side of the trunk (rear view render) and the front end of the front fender in proximity of the headlamp (front view). I though realize that these are not final renders, so please do not pay attention to this comment if it is irrelevant.

I also admire how the models are made in Max. The wireframe is not smooth at all, while the final render is very smooth. It seems that one needs to know beforehand exactly how surfaces will turn up when they are smoothened, right? That’s a great mystery for me as I’m using Rhino, where what you see is what you get.

About modeling 50’s cars. I would in fact like to do a 1959 Cadillac: it is a classic in it’s own category ;-) I have an old unassembled model kit, so it wouldn’t be especially difficult. However, here are my favourites in terms of styling: Studebaker Starliner coupe (1953), Corvette (1953 – 55) and (1956 - 57), Thunderbird (1955 – 56), Continental MkII (1955), Cadillac Eldorado Brougham (1957-58 ).

[Silent][Moebius]

hey Palat that white/black/gold combo is awesome

and well imo the streets today are dominated by "cool" colors (not like cool awesome but the feeling) i do still see a lot of red blue cars ect. but they are of course a lot darker. so you could say the 50s were maybe a bit more colorful, and also a lot brighter!

[palat]

(Got a BSOD just as i was writing a long explanation on Max's advantages and handicaps on polymodeling!
I think it's my graphics card, albeit 128Mb it is slower refreshing than if i plugged the monitor to the mboard ...)

Anyway-

Thanks to Mesh (rather Turbo) Smooth, the "sanding" modifier which helps keeping polycount reasonably sized, polymodeling is a straightforward method, and after a while one gets used to circumventing smoothing how-tos and what-nots. It demands a lot of tweaking to achieve clean results in some tricky parts, though, put in the end it pays. Picture a hexagon and a circle: to be the same size of the circle the hexagon's sides must fall halfways into the circle while its tips fall outwards. Lame description, but that is how smoothing works.
As for NURBs, Rhino's modeling method, i used it for some of my radios, but it was a nightmare everytime i had to move a point, so i just gave up. Besides, Max's NURBs are (or were, never got back to it) tricky. So i just gape at nb's wip pics... So smooth.

And thanks to nb's crit i have cleaned up the area around the "blips" (still a bit messy) and the outermost of the trunk so the reflections get a bit better. Your choices on American 50s cars are good-tasted, and i would love to see a Loewy Studebaker. A 3d first no doubt.

Silent][Moebius - so right. There were excesses back then (like pink-turquoise-white 3toned 55 Dodges) but they have that charm of their own.

I have updater the rear view. The client decided for a Sierra Gold body, and steering and basic dash has been added.

I could not resist to do the Sport COUPE (EDITED: Sorry for the mistake) , in Larkspur Blue. Rear part of the roof looks incorrect, must tweak, also anodized panel must be re-unwrapped clean. (EDITED: updated the image with roof and panel corrected)

[garethgeezer]

Lovely paint combination that, very tasty

[sarN]

awesome, your renders look so real and yet 3d at the same time. about the blips... what exactly are they on the car? are they indentations? or could you just model them as a separate piece and then just place them on the car to have the rest very smooth

[Silent][Moebius]

Originally Posted by palat

I could not resist to do the Sport Sedan, in Larkspur Blue. Rear part of the roof looks incorrect, must tweak, also anodized panel must be re-unwrapped clean.

i don't get it, they named it "sport sedan" after the color? or am i just missing something here? like a detail change :?

[Bumper3D]

Originally Posted by Silent][Moebius

i don't get it, they named it "sport sedan" after the color? or am i just missing something here? like a detail change :?

Oh well.. Have a closer look.

(Sport sedan is 2dr, that's your detail..)
edit: In fact... I'm not really sure about this any more as the topic title says "Sport Sedan".

@palat - Very nice work again! Looks very nice and realistic, and I kinda like the color.

[Tol@te]

Sport Sedan=4 door Hardtop Sedan
Sport Coupe=2 door Hardtop

Hardtop=there is no b-pillar

[palat]

Thanks Tol@te
I still get myself confused with the terms...
Sorry Silent][Moebius for the haste!

Thanks garethgeezer, sarN and Bumper3d
and the "blips" are the false louvers on the front fender. They are stamped into the sheetmetal, and in the Bel Air they were covered with golden pieces.

[Nik]

oh damn I just love your cars Palat.

It looks better then real ones...

[Silent][Moebius]

lol sometimes i'm pretty blind sorry