Douglas DC-3 Airplane Model

Douglas DC-3 Airplane Model

Reference Image - Britannica

This quarter, in my Modeling for VFX class, our first project is to model a vehicle (approved by Professor Kirt Witte). My chosen vehicle is the Douglas DC-3 Airplane. Created in the 1930s, the DC-3 revolutionized air travel by enabling nonstop, affordable transcontinental flights.

Week 1

This week I mostly gathering as many references as I could, and I still plan to collect more as I go. I plan to look at these references constantly to ensure my model has the correct look and mostly importantly level of realism.

First, I brought this DC-3 blueprint into Photoshop and split it up into 4 different photos.

Then, here you can see how I have set up each orthographic blueprint in its corresponding position.

In these screen captures, you can see how this 3D scene setup allows me to start the low-poly model of the plane by directly using the plane’s proportions to help create a more accurate model.