Original toy design · concept to final render
Tagr is a foam dart blaster I designed and rendered end to end: the silhouette, the colours, the materials and the shots that present it.
It is pistol sized and follows the category: chunky, simple to read, and shaped with moulding in mind.
The blue slide carries the top line from the rear of the blaster to the barrel shroud, and the black frame does the holding. Orange is kept for the parts a hand or an eye should find first: the trigger, the small catch above it, and the muzzle.
Colour changes sit on panel lines, where separate moulded parts would meet. Edges carry small fillets instead of sharp corners, the muzzle is blaze orange as toy blasters sold in the US have to be, and a translucent window in the grip shows the darts inside.
The shape had to work in plain clay before any colour went on. If the silhouette and the panel breaks only read once the blue and orange are there, the form is not doing its job.
The same design in three colour schemes, to see how the form holds up as the colour moves around: the core blue and black, a reversed version with the orange on the frame, and a light grey.
Rendered in Cycles. Glossy ABS for the shells, a finer textured grain on the grip, and a tinted translucent plastic for the window. A small custom shader gives each panel a soft gradient, like light falling across moulded plastic.
