Introduction

I am big fan of designing machines; designing machines make me feel high! I've been wanting to design a bike for a long time after watching Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight and so I came up with the idea for Razper (which means First Blade). Razper can function as an automated drone and a speeder.
 
It took me around two days – that's around 18 hours – to complete this image.

Please note: This Making Of is more about designing than modeling.

Day 1

I started with a rough concept with a very basic silhouette of the bike using Photoshop. At this stage I think it's good to just ground your vision on a sheet of paper so that you have some guidance throughout the designing process (it's better to get shapes through your own scribbles than through looking at others for inspiration. This way you get a more unique design).

When designing a bike or car, it's always better to initially design the side profile because it occupies more design space. I mostly used Max to design the bike completely, which helped me to get all aspects of the proportions and design correct (I was able to think and see all the sides while I designed). Then I went back into Photoshop to add detail to the bike. The design I chose is sharper and matches the name quite well (Fig.00).


I started with laying out the wheels first. In this case the wheels were nearly twice the diameter of the wheel base (Fig.01). Then I used the Line tool to draft out the side profile of the Razper, following the concept thumbnail, and then extruded in Max (Fig.02 – 03). I don't mind overlaps when I'm working because I only use Max to design, not to model out a final image. I know I can fix any issues in Photoshop (which I'll talk more about later).