1985 Chicago 1
Commonly credited with being the shoe that kick started modern sneaker culture, the original 1985 Jordan 1 (also known as the Chicago 1s) are some of the most coveted sneakers to ever exist, fetching up to $4,000 at least for a single pair. I am a sneaker head myself, and love the Jordan 1 silhouette, so when I finally got my hands on a pair of Chicago 1s (A modern pair that is much more reasonably priced, albeit still incredibly expensive) I immediately jumped to my computer to model it.
While my personal pair of Jordans did most of the heavy lifting, I wanted to model an original pair of 1985s, and there have been some changes to the shoe over the last 35 years. Pictured above is a pair of original 1985s, with noticeable differences being the oversized Nike logo which was shrunk for future releases, and a much more vertical heel, which was angled on later releases as well.
I began by building out the basic structure of the shoe in Maya, and then brought it into Zbrush to do the high-poly model. Here you can see the leather has mostly been finished, along with the stitching, but the mid-sole and outer sole have yet to be finished, along with the wings logo on the ankle flap.
Next came the texturing stage, which was done in Substance painter. In the above picture you can see the shoe beginning to come together. I chose to go for a weathered look for the shoes, because a shoe of this stature has earned its scars, and deserves to be represented as such. And it looks cooler.
And here is the final turnaround! Thank you for reading!