Today is the last day to submit your final pictures in the Topless SMCars.net contest. So I had to post mine, here they are !
As requested, I also committed an up-to-date studio render :
Let me know what you think !
I’m close to the end of this project. I need to do some extra work about the integration with the background, and maybe to enhance the paint shader. Of course, some extra renders will be done 
The scheduled deadline for SMCars “Topless” contest is September, the 15th. Maybe the site team will postpone it to get more achieved entries. It would be a shame to have so many great project being dropped just because their authors didn’t manage to get enough time.
Anyway, I worked as much as possible and even if my project isn’t done yet, I have some significant updates worth to share with my fellow readers. Here are the latest renders of the most insane cab’ I’ve imagined :
Feel free to post your thought about the model in a comment !
This project is for a limited-timeframe contest. So I wanted not to lose time with many clay renders : clay renders are useful to search for bumps and to show the project on forums, but they take time and are not the only way to seek bumps & pinches. So at first I just posted screen captures, directly from Blender.
But I didn’t refrain the urge to do a test render, to see how the car will look. It’s a simple test : only a white plane above the car to light it, scratch-made shaders. The white areas are still clay-rendered because of the lack of shaders for those parts.
Model progress is different on the two pictures, the second is the latest : it shows headlights and details in air intake (radiators, grilles, bumper)
What do you think ?
My entry will be a topless version of the Hennessey Venom GT. The original car is already a crazy mix (Lotus Elise front end and chassis, Corvette ZR1 engine and some incredible skills to adapt the engine to chassis) so I’ll try to get even crazier to achieve something even more cool.
I needed some time to decide if I should do a simple targa version, like a Toyota Supra (i.e. with minimum roof removal) or a more open version like a Porsche Carrera GT. The simple targa would have been more easy, as the Lotus Elise is already one. But I hope I will be able to achieve a better design, at least let’s say more elaborated. Well, something like nice engine cover (like Carrera GT or Bug’ Veyron) with amazing air intake (like Zonda Five Roadster)
So before drawing my concept, I will focus on getting a spline cage right. No blueprints for this one : I asked Hennessey a couple of weeks ago, no answer but they were kind enough to add my e-mail address to their mailing list 