Bonita had a face problem.
She's Rusty's vehicle and his best friend. If she can become a moped, an off-roader or something that floats, I still need to recognise her before she says a word.
For a while I had expressions on every screen. That got muddled fast, especially with Navi already living in the displays. So I gave Bonita the simple, physical face: headlamps for eyes, bumper for a mouth. Navi can keep the screens.
Does she still look like Bonita?
I put that face on a few possible bodies to see whether it held together. Some are much further out than anything I've built, but the same pair of headlamp eyes keeps showing up. That's the test I needed from these design concepts.
The drawings aren't a promise that every form will turn up in the game. They help me stop six possible vehicles from looking like six strangers.
The less glamorous 3D bit
Then I brought the first rough 3D version into Blender. From a distance it's Bonita. Up close, the pieces have open edges, the glass isn't really glass, and the wheels need rebuilding before they could turn properly.
It's a useful model to inspect, not a vehicle I'd put in the game. The face and proportions in the drawings still get the final say while I work out the moving parts.
At least now I can walk around her instead of trying to imagine the other side of a picture. That helped more than I expected.