An experiment with a different modeling technique gone right. I'm proud of this one.
Story
The Friend Finder 300, produced by Homeworld Research Technologies (HRT), is a handheld portable computer produced for research teams in a post-Earth utopian human future. The 300 model is a simple and limited device, being built to a tight budget. Despite the restricted resources, HRT managed to cram well-designed and robust features into the FF-300, making this a popular and reliable choice for any beginner research team. Equippped with a mesh-based networking system, the FF-300 keeps members in touch with each other in remote areas. Communication features include a text messaging system, a single low-bandwidth voice channel, and basic image support. Many criticize the pastel color scheme as being childish, but HRT's continued sales and production of the FF-300 say otherwise.
The base FF-300 became popular with an unintended audience. Gamers found the cost and efficiency of the base 300 model to be a good fit for playing games on the go. It didn't take long after release for hackers and modders to latch onto the device, customizing them with unique color schemes and buttons. It took a number of years for a proper gaming firmware to be developed, but the modding team was eventually funded by HRT themselves. This unexpected collaboration resulted in the production of the Friend Finder SP, specially designed and made with gaming in mind. Sacrificing battery longevity for a more powerful dedicated graphics processor made this a solid gaming handheld.
Nestled deep within a cave not currently listed on any map or database, this grotesque fleshy version of the Friend Finder is waiting for its next host to arrive. It smells of necrotic flesh, pulsates randomly, and excretes a slimy sweat-like substance. This goes against all logic and ideals of this utopian future.
Art talk
This was an experiment with metaball modeling in Blender that turned out really well I think.
Not everything makes perfect sense in terms of design or the little story I wrote for it, but it's part of the fun of art. Make something weird and learn from it.
Using metaballs is something that I first encountered when I started my blender journey. At the time I chalked them up to be a tool that has little utility, but I decided to give them a try again. The trick with metaballs is to treat them how they want to be used, make smooth round things. There's a lot of similarity with dedicated SDF tools like ConjureSDF or SDF Modeler, for example. Those tools offer you a lot more control over the whole process, but they have their own drawbacks. Metaballs are built right into Blender, meaning you can give this sorta free-form modeling process a shot with no additional requirements or cost. They are very simple and have very few features or control, but you can work with these restrictions to make interesting things like I did here.
The major downside of this SDF way of modeling is that the resulting geometry is an absolute mess, similar to that of a remeshed sculpt. That means you can treat the converted mesh like you would any other sculpt though, smoothing out things or adding details. I imagine that using an auto quad remesher would make this kind of workflow a very powerful and quick way to make things. I ended up doing the retopology on this model manually, I like to hone my modeling skills and topology knowledge.
Retopo on both the subdivision mesh and the game mesh are of course far from perfect, but perfection is the enemy of being done.
Texturing the plastic versions was pretty simple, but the Flesh Finder was made in a burst of inspiration. The node tree on that thing is insane, at least it bakes down to a texture well. Making the custom UIs for each version is something I'm proud of, and it was enjoyable. I always love when stuff like that is different between variations of the same object.
All the screen UIs were made using either Blender itself, Inkscape, or Gimp. The base FF-300 UI was made in Inkscape, with the topographical map being made using a custom Blender render setup I put together for creating topo maps. The SP UI was made as a simple 3D render in Blender. The Flesh Finder UI was made in Gimp using some simple text and boxes, in addition to the public domain human diagram I've linked below.
There's some stuff I could've done with adding more details, but I didn't want to rework all of the texture stuff by the time I had thought about it. Maybe I can redo it later.
Human diagram used in the Flesh Finder taken from the Wikimedia Commons; Thank you to the author for making this diagram available to the Public Domain.