My Big Silver Rocket Ship - Instructional Diagrams and 3D Model

Client: Stephen Johnson (Author / Illustrator), Simon & Schuster
Book Link: My Big Silver Rocket Ship

My good friend and very talented illustrator Stephen Johnson designed this fantastic book that contains a cardboard rocket ship that kids can put together as they learn about shapes, numbers, and rockets. Stephen asked if I could help by creating a series of instructional diagrams of the rocket pieces and how they are fit together in order to make the model. I used Blender to create a 3D model based on the physical rocket and artwork Stephen designed, and then used that 3D model to create orthographic diagrams of the rocket’s construction. We also ended up using a render of the 3D model for the cover and title page of the book.

Below you can see the diagrams as they appeared in several sample page spreads. Spread designs, text, and rocket artwork are by Stephen Johnson. The larger rocket pieces on the left hand page are cardboard shapes that come out of the book to build the rocket model.

Here you can see all 6 of the diagrams as I created them before they were added to the layouts in the book.

A textured version of the 3D model created for the diagrams was also used as a basis for the rocket on the book’s title page. Below you can see the model in it’s grey box form within Blender, showing how the scene was created.