I recently finished up my CAD model of the Schwinn Azrael, circa 2000. Here are a few quick shots before I really dive in and work it over.
I’ve been doing automotive and handheld medical device renders for so long that it’s challenging to think about composition and views. I might need to reference some old catalog photos or something.
I yanked the tire tread displacement map and sidewall displacement map from some of the automotive resources I’ve developed. 
The head badge is also a displacement map.
Most parts are solid models, the frame is solid but I created the welds as separate surface features so I could apply normal maps. I haven’t found quite the right normal map to accurately represent the lumpy welds, trying to unwrap all of these would be impossible with how interconnected many of them are.
Anyway, hope you like it. More to come.
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NIce work, Schwinn Azrael
Composition for bikes is challenging! I think you nailed it though. Looks incredible, Glen.
Looks awesome! For nice welding things you could also try to search for them at ArtStation there are a lot of ‘welding’ brushes like these (be sure there’s also an ‘alpha’ besides a ZBrush brush:
ArtStation - Welding Brushes 2.0 | Brushes
And this one is also pretty cool but for Substance Painter use:
ArtStation - Weld Generator | Brushes
I use Substance Painter mostly if I need to use brushes but I think the 3D Paint option of Keyshot is an option as well to use the alpha’s of the brushes as normal/height on the welds.
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yeah, I have a few weld maps like that, even made one myself, but it’s impossible to unwrap some of these welds to make something like that work since they’re so interconnected. I’m on KS10, so no 3D paint for me, unfortunately.
I might need to go back and make each weld it’s own part so that I can unwrap them.
I think the welds look quite convincing already.
3D Paint with displacement could also work really well for this… I’ll have to do some tests now 
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Ah yeah, without the UV’s it is quite impossible I think. Must say some of the welds work really well already and I really like the composition of the bike against the wall with the shadow.
I decided to just remodel the welds as separate pieces from each other. Thankfully KS10 allows UV unwrapping (just not 3D paint) so it took some setup, especially coming from CAD, but eventually I got the welds to a place I like.
I might revisit the bump map I made for this, welds aren’t rolling exactly like I’d like, but it’s pretty close anyway.
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Wow! Awesome!
Think for a lot of people the UV-unwrapping is a total nightmare. I’m still not good at it but in MODO where I model most of my things it’s quite friendly. Still took me years to really get through it though because it’s something that’s easy to overthink and looks like a terrible amount of work at first. I’m also happy programs like Keyshot or Substance Painter can do it automatically these days.
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There you go! Man, I really like this one. Nice lighting and good use of that shadow and wall for composition. And those weld beads! Yes. Also, nice job on the modeling as well.
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