The R7 Recon Bike is my take on a utilitarian electric motorbike. I am more of a car guy personally but there are so many great examples in movies that have inspired me to create my own bike. I envisioned a rugged bike that can be easily repaired whilst also lasting for prolonged periods of time in any environment.
The recon bike is part of the government's defense. So the bike I'm designing is the base model that can have various modular upgrades to help suit a particular situation. Judge Dredd's bike is the sort of feel I want this bike to have but more of an outback bike. Thick tyres, tools and a big engine to power it all. Dredd's bike is concealed behind thick armour but my version is a wasteland / out of city vehicle. Equally it could be outfitted with armour for inner city work.
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For these reasons I picked my first mockup design on the right. I felt it was a bike that seemed easy to manufacture for large scale demand. It has ample space for a selection of tools and it's electrically powered. I felt like this government bike would be around 30 years in the future so will occupy denser batteries for longer range. It also is silent compared to a combustion engine however a big motor would have a noticeable sound. That's why the R7 has two electric motors. One simply for quietly moving it in hostile territory.
First step was getting the main cage or frame of the bike made. I could then build the main components within the guidelines of this frame. I quickly wanted a scene set up for me to see how the bike translated in keyshot with its lighting setup. I only did this during the modeling phase but followed this up by making a UV layout for Sketchfab.
With this project in particular I decided to do my creative iteration within maya compared to doing this before hand in 2D. I did this because I had a clear image of the final design and wanted to save time and make this model seem more realistic with added components. I adjusted the light cluster and added more detail to the front wheel covers.
I really enjoyed modeling a motorbike since I am obsessed with cars. As much as I like the slick ashestics of road bikes the tough utilitarian feel of off road bikes is more appealing for me. Creating general background information for when this bike was operating and in what conditions helped me have a clearer vision of the end design and saved time. In the future I'm planning on further optimising the UV map as this was done quickly to meet the competition deadline for the Sketchfab competition. Also will be creating an environment for this bike to give a clearer idea of the world i've created it for.
This bike is a recon bike meaning it would be used and covered in random muck. This is the approach I undertook for the Sketchfab competition but after using keyshot for my DTM BMW project it was only right to see a clean version of R7.
