How I made my Shelby GT350R model using Blender

Setting up the blueprint

First of all, like modeling every vehicle, you need to find the Blueprint which looks like this:

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So I take the Blueprint and crop it to 4 pieces: front, back, top, side. Then I load those cropped images in Blender as Background images:

Here I set up every added image to show up on the given side. For example, if I press Num7 to show top view, I only see Top.jpg image (this only works on orthographic view, which you can change by pressing Num5).

Then I change the units system to Metric. It’s very important to keep your model real-world scale!

Now I add default Cube to the scene and scale it to real-world car size (I just googled for 2015 Shelby GT350R body size). After scaling the cube, I check the cube height, and width to match the blueprint images from all sides. Usually, I need to scale down image size to match that cube size.

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Finding good reference images

Before I start modeling, I need to find a lot of reference images of the 2015 Shelby GT350R. I google it and save a bunch of images of the exact 2015 year model from all the sides. It helps me to model the exact shape of the car a lot. Without using reference images, you can’t do it right because the blueprint is not enough.

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Modeling

So after finding a bunch of reference images, I start modeling all main body pieces together. I like to start modeling from the hood. So I put a plane, divide it in half and delete one side. Then add Mirror Modifier, toggle on Clipping:

And start extruding piece by piece. Check every side of how it’s lining up with the blueprint and keep going.
Before going to the modeling process, keep in mind that when I modeled it, I was a student. And at that time, I was very busy making a game with Unity by myself for the finals.

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Day 1

I keep it low poly and try to match the blueprint shape as best as possible. Keep in mind that all car parts like the hood and front bumper you see on this pic are connected. I made one big mesh (this is my first time modeling car, not on separate pieces).

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Day 2 - Added: front fender and doors

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Day 3 - Added: side skirt, back fender and trunk

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Day 4 - Added: rear bumper, roof, all windows, and some plastics around side windows

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Day 5 - Added: front and side bumper plastics, spoiler

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Day 6 - Added: rear bumper, rear bumper plastics, mufflers, tail lights, and back plastic

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Day 7 - Added: front grill plastics, headlights, and front indicators

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Day 8 - Added: wheel and tyre

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Day 9 - Added: brake disc and car bottom part

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Day 10 - Added: brake calliper

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Day 11 - Added: mirror and door handle

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Day 12 - Added: subdivision and started to add edge loops to sharpen the edges

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Day 13 - Added: more edge loops to sharpen the edges

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Day 14 - Finished to sharpen the edges for all of the car body parts

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Day 15-16 - Added: more detail, and subdivision for the wheel, UVmapped car body

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Day 17 - Added: UVmapped all car parts (this is unfinished UVmap)

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Day 18 - Exported the model and tested UVs by texturing the model using Quixel Suite 2.0 (this is my first time using quixel)

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Day 19 - Added: license plates, logo emblems and “GT350” logos on the sides of front fenders. Fixed some car Topology

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Day 20 - Added: screen wipers and simple interior

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Day 21 - Added: seats and steering wheel

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Texturing

Day 22

At this point I did all UVs and baked AOmaps and ColorID’s using Blender (car model is on subdivision level 1 at this point):

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For another couple of days: I exported the whole car model as .OBJ and did Texturing using Quixel Suite 2.0 (this is my second time using Quixel). The whole car model contains 4k Textures like: Body, Plastics, Lights, and Glass (each has AO, Albedo, and Specular Maps ready to use for Unity 5 PBR Standard Shader). Here is an example of Body AO, Albedo, and Specular maps:

I didn’t post normal maps here because there are just small details for parts like grills, gas cap and etc.

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Some completed model renders inside Quixel Suite 2.2.2:

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Testing

After I have done Texturing, I imported and tested Model and Textures inside Unity 5.

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Rendering in Blender

So after testing my model and textures inside Unity, I decided to do Render inside Blender using Cycles. I suck at Cycles, but after a bunch of render tests, I came up with this:

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Post-processing in Photoshop

I used Photoshop CC 2015.5 to do Post-Processing:

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Final Blender render

And here is the FINAL VERSION with fake bubbles, which some people don’t like. I also prefer previous results without them so you can see more detail of the model.

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So all of the progress was made in one month. At the same time, I was working on a university finals project.

Thank you for your time reading this :)