This look dev project was submitted as an entry for The Rookies Texturing Challenge. This texturing challenge required entrants to texture a beautiful model of the Kombi van (below) using any of the Substance apps (Substance Painter, Substance Designer or Alchemist).
Originally, I didn’t know *how* I wanted to texture the van. I just knew the colors I wanted to work with. But as I played around with the colors, I found myself wanting to create a trusty vehicle for a family of beekeepers that spend most of their free time saving the bees, camping, and just BEEing together…I don’t know…it just came to me.
This was a fun task, because I knew I couldn’t change the geometry. I knew I had to find a way to tell a story with the textures and make it feel interesting and appealing that way. As someone who had previously been more into moving vectors and faces, this presented a much needed challege.
Model by Christina Ryan! https://www.artstation.com/artwork/68RdBN
Update #1
After creating my moodboard and looking at so many pictures of Kombi Vans, I moved on to getting to work. On my first day working with the model, I spent some time clicking around in Substance Painter, getting to understand how things were broken down for me to work with. I’d never worked with UV tiles at that point, so this was my first time really seeing them. In the update below, wanted to at least block in the colors I’d landed on. I didn’t know what I wanted the story behind the van to be, yet, but I knew these colors were somehow tied into the vision for it.
Update #2
Below, I went in and added more character and textures. As I continued to work on this, it began to feel more and more like a van for surfers who happened to also be really into saving the bees. Absolutely something I can get behind. While the story needed some finessing, I had at least settled on one thing: I wanted this van to be for the outdoorsy, nature-loving type.
Update #3
In this go, I added more details and grunginess to give the van even more character. I also began to mess around with the headlights and I changed the top texture. While I enjoyed the brush texture I had before, I found that doing this honeycomb pattern would help simplify things a bit, while also marrying the top and bottom textures. The roof has since become my favorite part of the van 🙂
Update #4
For this round, I wanted to show more wear and tear on the Kombi. I wanted it to look like the people that own this van actually get down and dirty trying to save the bees and the planet. These are the people that sometimes spend the night camping next to their van with their kid(s). And on nights when it’s too cold outside, they sleep in the van and stare at the glow in the dark stars they’ve placed on the ceiling. .
final update
I was able to get some helpful feedback from Christina, during the challenge, that helped me finalize things and bring the project over the finish line. I also spent a good amount of time cleaning up some areas and finessing the details.
I really enjoyed working on this project, and I consider it to be the beginning of my journey as a 3D Texture Artist/Look Dev Artist. Looking forward to more projects like this!
