The coin design and manufacturing process can take several months and it’s rare that I get show any designs before they make it to the shelves. Coin Club Australia , the client for this project, has allowed me to show the concepts for a potential set of coins to mark the much-hyped date of 21/12/2012. I don’t believe the conclusion of the Mayan calendar will cause anything cataclysmic but I still enjoyed working on these concepts and I’m pretty happy with the layout, even if the subject is well… a bit depressing. The project is still under development and there are some other completely different concepts in the works.

Below are a few of the very early, very rough concepts I worked on while the direction of the project still needed some exploration.  I personally love the idea of doing the four horsemen but I’m not sure if it would appeal to a wider audience or might be a bit too biblical for peoples’ tastes.

Here are a few shots of the rendering process. At this stage I get many reference images and place them around my work area (a trick I learned from Bobby Chiu) and draw a new image by first sketching, outlining and then filling in the details. The trickiest part of designing these particular coins would have to be creating the fictional cities and trying to avoid making them look too much like any particular place or building. This probably took the longest time, drawing man-made structures is not one of my strengths.

At this stage, these concepts were approved and would normally go on to be manufactured. The project however may be taking a different direction. I’d still love to hear people’s thoughts or critiques on these coins.