The Sons of Liberty Riders Make a Chopper
April 26th, 2011Here’s a little ditty about how we, as an independent film, can team up with a nation-wide group to create some cool designs. No spoilers, I promise.
So there is this scene in the movie where Zoe borrows Bernie’s motorcycle. Zoe is our hero female, and Bernie is her butch-as-hell sidekick. Truth be told, Bernie is my favorite character, but, alas, she isn’t interested in men. But back to the story.
Zoe |
Bernie |
We needed to design Bernie’s motorcycle. It turns out we have some buddies who have been following Silver Circle closely, over at the Sons of Liberty Riders – a nationwide motorcycle group with over 5,000 members. They’re the real thing – imagine a “Don’t Tread on Me” flag on the back of a big-ass Harley and you’ve got it. And you really, seriously don’t want to tread on them.
A couple of weeks ago I was chewing the fat on SOLR’s weekly radio show, Spirit of 76 (we’ll talk about Silver Circle anywhere and everywhere), and I figured I’d float the idea of Bernie’s bike. Man, they were all over that one. Before I knew it, a million experts were on the case. Sportster – too small. Night Train – badass. Custom – absolutely. Ape-hangers – gotta have em. Pictures? Tons of links. Chrome on the pipes? Hell no – black matte. Lots of conjecture about what Zoe would look like on the bike too, as you might imagine.
In the end we decided to make Bernie’s bike a heavily customized Harley Night Train, based on this mod that Jon found online*, plus some of our own touches. So with some great reference pictures, now we had to build it in 3D. This is such a heavy custom bike that we couldn’t use any stock 3D models – so we built this one from scratch, using Maya of course.
We just finished the 3D model last week, and just threw some temporary shaders onto it to show it off to the world today. It’ll be mostly black and brushed steel, but need some pointers on how to paint the tank. We are thinking black and yellow – but what do you people think? Yes, the tires have no treads – but you won’t see that in motion. Did we get anything wrong? We know you have an opinion!
We’re really happy with this little spontaneous collaboration. I sure would not have found or made a bike this cool on my own. And, the Sons of Liberty Riders have invited Zoe to wear their logo on her leather vest as she rides! Sorry guys, we’re still fitting that vest onto her now…
*Correction – Jon got us to Night Train, and we think Trap suggested that customized link. Thanks to all.
