By utilizing a ¾ perspective view, the designer is able to thus help visualize the design as if it were to be produced as a miniature model or 3D object. In terms visual troubleshooting, now is a opportune time to explore various functional shapes that may have appeared promising in a planer/side profile but may cause various teething issues in a solid 3D form. Lastly, whilst it is useful and well commended to take into consideration all these aspects of rigorous industrial design and functionality, perhaps a fine balance of sufficient believability, aesthetics and functionality offers the best marriage of the trio.

We will get the opportunity to realise this design further within the tour of the Diesel district.

Steam Wagon - Sketch & Cleanup

Returning once again towards the Horse & Carriage concept, the designer hits upon the idea of replacing the Horse with a steamhorse instead (Fig.04).


The initial ink sketch features a carriage piloted by a driver sitting high at the rear of the carriage. In contrast to the horseless carriage approach, this concept features a wagon that has no combustion/mechanical aspects and in all intents and purposes merely a simple carriage. This is linked up towards a small compact steam engine consisting of a boiler, piping and exposed gear shafts/pulleys and belts.

A mid set of support iron wheels are attached in the middle to afford more stability and fine control. These are relayed via a set of pulleys and controls that afforded manoeuvrability to the driver in the rear.

Cleanup: Subsequently the initial impetus of these designs are used as a template to provide a cleanline sketch.

Steam Wagon - Workup

The cleanline sketches of the Steam Wagon (see Fig.04) are utilized as a base from which to work it up further. In this instance, we will only focus on a side profile iteration.

These can be blocked out to accentuate areas of demarkation (Fig.05) - allowing one to focus on the textural aspect of materials. For example, a transport that utilizes wood and metal, can expect to have a level of matte finish vs specularity.
Being able to denote and show these material differences eg. leather, polished wood, exposed steel, riveted boilers - using just pure values can often be a (welcome) challenge and offer a high value concept from which to derive other designs.



Values: (Fig.06) The next challenge is to transform a line drawing into a semi 3Dimensional image using just pure greyscale values. Popular car magazines can help with regards to lighting approaches - and quite simplistically a top down lighting situation is often sufficient to provide some believability in a side profile view.