Space Drone

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The Space Drone project

When styling meets no function

At maform we use a system called OKR (Objectives and Key Results), where we can set up personal goals. That means we can spend about 10% of our paid time on personal projects, learning a new tool or do something what is not related to the ongoing client projects.

Usually I’m working on smaller to bigger projects from smart gadgets to real size vehicles. Most of the time we have to design the technical parts too, not only the shape of it. That means we are 3d printing and building a lot of prototypes during a design process. It is important to test all parts of a product, like fitting the electronics inside and assemble everything to see that we didn’t miss anything during the digital modelling. This is a nice challenge in product design, but also takes a lot of energy to figure out all the small details.

I have started the Space Drone project to create a futuristic looking object. My goal was to focus on the style of the design. This time I didn’t have to think about technical details or manufacturing solutions. It is more like a concept art. The beginning is an ideation sketch as usual, but the end result is a display model instead of a working prototype.

I have created the first digital sketch in Photoshop. Placed some mechanical looking parts and designed a body around them.

The second step was to build up the main parts in 3d. In Fusion 360 I used the mix of freeform sculpting and solid body modelling.

It’s a good technic to finish the half done 3d model in Photoshop. This way it’s faster to put there all the details and helps in the modelling process.

Adding all the details takes time, but it makes the model more realistic.

the finished 3d model

After the 3d model is totally finished it’s time to colour it and do the renders.

Renders

Next step to prepare the model for 3d printing. For better surface quality I prefer to print with the least amount of support. For that I have cut the model into 3 main parts and separated the small doors. It’s a good idea to place some reference holes to make the assembly easier later.

3d Print