For my 3D model I had decided to use an Infiniti G37S coupe. For the model I was able to find an accurate schematic for the different profiles of the car, without this I do not believe I could have done it nearly as fast as I did and with a similar level of accuracy.
using that image, I cropped out the 4 necessary perspectives and so I could apply them to the relevent ortho views in blender. when applying them to blender I need to scale the side and top perspective of the car accordignly. As blender will default to scaling to a default 5 units for all images; I had to figure out what the ratio of the front to side perspective was by getting the car measurements. After getting the ratio, I just multiplied 5 by the ratio and set that as the image size for top and side views.
The first piece I began building was the roof. It is a very simple and clean piece for me to start familiarizing on blender with. I created a plane, deleted three of the vertices from it and the began to trace from the outside edge, when the edge was complete I selected all the vertices and extruded them towards the center line of the roof. The majority of the car would be built like this and then the use of a mirror modifier to mimic the other half of the car to help save on work.
using the other ortho views is important as it ensures that a vertex is not straying off on the current vertice of depth in any one view.
I followed the same process for the hood, it ended up not being completely accurate as the hood does have a crease that follows up for the inside of the headlight up to the window, however the pictures I referenced did not emphasize it.
The front bumper became the first difficult piece for me to start creating as it had both open slots, a curving front face and changing angles from top to bottom. While I was able to get the general idea of the bumper from the beggining, a proper method to line the inlets in the bottom didnt come to me untill later. similar with the corners of the bumper where the angle makes a dramatic change to begin the side profile. When I was initially satisfied with the shape of the bumper, I had decided to add my own flare to the image. As I have never seen a rendering or image of a gt inspired g37, I thought I would put my own canards and splitter on the front.
I countinued with a similar system for making the sides the trunk and the rear bumper. When they were initially completed, I loaded them from their own individual files and put them together in a compilation file. Positioned and scaled them to "fit" and then left there shapes alone, not merged or manipulated unless I saw creases or open edges.
I had originally tried applying UVmaps to my images, but did not prefer that method of adding colors to them, so I looked around and saw the texture and materials options. First creating a material that normally affects the general color, shine, reflection, etc. and adding a texture such as clouds, or in the case of many pieces, an image of a carbon fiber weave
I then decided to start building the rear taillights, i began with the general rear perspective, extruded the shape forward on the cars perspective and then exturded down to create a back face. afterwards I created a sphere that I modified with a combination of cyclinders to create the signature circular lights. afterwards I applied a material that had semi transperancy with a red diffuse on the what would be the lens, and a seperate white material with a high emit on the bulbs, with the backing being highly reflective silver surface for chrome.
The headlights came next, and where a more complicated shape that where hard to get an actual diagram of, so I just reference images on the internet and settled for my own creation of them. I followed a similar method as I did for the tailights, this time using different colored emits on different lights. after they were done I proceeded to put both the head and tail lights onto the car
To create the mesh inserts for the front grill, I went with my own design using a simple square,i extruded the edges out, and deleted the inner surface to give a "link' style. after I then used the array modifier to create a large mirror of it the size of the opening. Apply the array then use the knife tool to cut vertices that where beyond the size of the opening and delete those vertices and outwards.
One of the final parts to the project was creating the rim and wheel. I found an image of a wheel I prefered and used it for a background reference image. I then proceeded to trace one seventh of the wheel, later applying the spin to create a symmetric rim.
with some texture and materials modifications and minor touchups the following is what I resulted in.
As far as issues go, one of my biggest issues was learning to use quad shapes for rendering, as triangles for some reason tend to mesh incorrectly when used. After learning to use only quads the shapes began to flow much nicer. Otherwise just learning the controls and a good methodology for building the shapes is the the most difficult part.