CGI Artist Recreates Cars down to their Finest Details

Den Brooks, who works as as head of the 3D production department at SoftFacade, a mobile app and development design company in New York City, has always been a big fan of classic cars and in recent years has become addicted to make some 3D cars to fill his computer-generated dream digital garage. Not many people know that a car can be recreated with this many details, but it’s true.

Den’s favorite car decades are the ’60s and ’70s, because there were so many great cars and inspiring decisions made at the time. His favorite car of all time is the Corvette Stingray, both the C2 and the C1. The most recent project of this kind that Den created was a 1970 Plymouth Fury, (final animation scenes shown in the digital film strip below), but that was four years ago—this time he wanted to do something fresh, to up his game. He chose the create a 3D render of the Stingray convertible.

We learned through Den that creating a 3D car model is very similar to a restoration process. It might not be as involved in the engineering aspects, but that all depends on one’s attitude. In Den’s case, he thoroughly studies every detail, finish, and material of a car before beginning the 3D production process.

This in-depth process of extensive research is very significant for Den in terms of learning the history of a car; he believes it helps understand all aspects of its creation much better, and this is the part of the process that he loves most of all. Every car has its own unique story, and Den loves to listen to these stories through his research process. He loves the mood of vintage posters and film shots, so he aims to achieve that mood and feeling in his renders. His goal is to make something so realistic that it appears it can actually be touched. If a viewer responds this way, Den believes his goal has been achieved.

Some of the project stages are shown in the images below. After all the research is done, each item and aspect of the car is created individually before things are fit together as a whole; wire frames and clay modeling are only two parts of this long process.

The Stingray project isn’t quite finished yet, but we love the artistry that has gone into Den’s project and are looking forward to seeing Den’s final animation.

Click here to visit Den’s website.