What I did:

The Institute of Advanced Motorists badge is now complete – modelled and shaded in Blender. This might seem like a small prop, but it’s the most important object in the entire animation.

Why this badge matters:

The IAM badge represents identity, achievement, and expertise. For someone who earned advanced driving qualifications, that badge wasn’t just a bit of metal on a car grille – it was proof of skill and precision. It meant something.

In the context of John’s Journey, this badge becomes the visual throughline connecting five decades of his life. It’s the one constant as everything else changes.

My dad’s actual IAM badge in his memory cabinet:

Still in great condition:

The modelling challenges:

I modelled the badge based on the actual IAM design: the distinctive red and white enamel with chrome lettering and surround, the mounting holes. It needed to be accurate enough to be recognisable but stylised enough to fit with my character’s aesthetic.

The typography proved to be a challenge for a couple of reasons. Text on a bézier curve or circle in Blender is straightforward enough, but I couldn’t figure out how to get the text running around the inside of the circle. In hindsight, the answer was probably not to use a circle curve at all, just a line bézier, but I didn’t figure that out until after the event. Leaning on my Adobe Illustrator skills, I did it in seconds and exported as an SVG and imported into Blender. I also traced the ‘I’, ‘A’ and ‘M’ in Illustrator to get the badge as accurate as possible.

When importing SVGs or converting text to a mesh in Blender, you don’t get proper quads – the topology is an absolute mess of triangles and n-gons. I stumbled across a really good YouTube video by Rescan https://youtu.be/S3WJwsPk_mw?si=rcjW4RXz7LiTvGxa that covered cleaning up text topology. It was significant work to clean up, but worth it for geometry that behaves properly.

Tidying the topology of SVG lettering:

Cleaning up Blender text after it was converted to mesh:

Topology added manually:

Bevelled edges for gently rounded corners:

The imported SVG of the traced lettering from Illustrator when converted to mesh:

Select boundary loop:

Separate boundary before deleting the original mesh:

Clean outlines to work with:

Dissolve selected vertices and fill as required to create clean geometry:

Fill between the remaining verts:

The materials:

Getting the materials right was crucial. The red enamel needed that slight gloss – not mirror-like, but with a bit of shine. I used the Glass BSDF with the roughness around 0.12 and IOR 2.0 to get that enamel look. The chrome surround I made slightly rougher than the actual badge, to fit it better with the aesthetic of the other assets, and because it needed to read clearly on camera regardless of lighting.

What I learned:

Props can carry huge narrative weight. The badge is small compared to John or the cars, but it’s what the story hinges on. Taking the time to get it right – both technically and emotionally – was worth it.

Also, sometimes the fastest solution isn’t perhaps the standard 3D workflow – using Illustrator for the curved text saved me frustration. Know when to use the right tool for your own skills, even if that tool isn’t Blender.

Next:

With John’s 30s model rigged and the badge complete, I’ve got two parallel work streams to tackle:

Creating the older age variants: as mentioned in my previous post, I’ve generated reference images using Microsoft Copilot showing how John will look in his 50s, 70s, and 90s. The challenge is ageing him convincingly whilst maintaining his recognisable features, so the person underneath remains visible across five decades.

Sorting the car models: In an attempt to save time, I’ve found free 3D assets for the four period cars I need: Rover P6 (1970s), Rover SD1 (1980s), Peugeot 308CC (2000s), and Peugeot 2008 (2010s). Now I need to work through each one to get them to a consistent level of detail, and create materials to match my stylised aesthetic. Downloaded assets are rarely production-ready straight out of the box.

Both of these tasks require attention to consistency – John needs to be recognisable as the same person across decades, and the cars need to look like they belong in the same world despite coming from different asset creators.