PH Newbie - My University Project

PH Newbie - My University Project

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BenRichards89

Original Poster:

661 posts

134 months

Wednesday 9th January 2013
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Hi Guys, I'm Ben. I've been lurking around here for a while now, and decided to register yesterday. There doesn't appear to be an introducing section, so I felt posting here would give you guys a bit of background about me. I'm 23 years old and I graduated from my Automotive Design degree back in the summer of 2011.

For my final project, which ran pretty much over the whole academic year, I was allowed to set my own brief for what project I wanted to do. I would then have to do the design work and build a scale model of the design. I thought it would be fitting to create a thread about what I enjoy doing as my introduction smile

I've always loved MGs since a young age, it's not really something I can explain, none of my family have owned any, I've just had a fascination with them as a kid. SInce I've been old enough to drive I've wanted to own one, but the cost of insurance quickly put paid to that idea. The closest I got was a Facelift Rover 25, which in all honesty I loved. My mates laughed but I didn't care! When the opportunity arose I knew I had to do an MG for the project. I knew it was something I could easily get under the skin of, and not lose interest in because I love the brand.

So the brief was set. I was going to design a flagship coupe for the reborn MG brand. Taking inspiration from cars of the past, and the present. Once I got the idea past the tutors, it was time to get sketching.



Started off with side profiles of the vehicle, quite relentless, altering elements of lines and form as I went. I wanted the car to have quite an aggressive, sporty stance, but at the same time I wanted it to have a bit of elegance about it as well.



I did do some very rough three quarter views as well, but these were a bit tardy at this point. However once the initial ideas were signed off, it was on to the drawing board to do my 1/10 Scale Orthographic. This was important to get right as it would be blown up to 1/4 Scale and reference points taken off it to make a Clay Model.



I spent 4 days on the board, overlaying and plotting sections onto the different views ready for the model. Once I had this signed off, I scanned it and blew it up to 1/4 Scale and got cracking with the model.



Wooden base with foam. MDF Wheel Arch formers, and sections copied off the orthographic and cut to shape on some 5mm plastic. There was a little more foam to add at this point and then it was shaped back with a rasp, ready for the initial load of clay.



Clay was then built up around the Arch formers and built up the the edges of the plastic sections I had cut out from the drawing.



Each section was then completely built up with clay so that I then had the rough proportions of the car to work with. By this stage there is approximately 20mm of clay on top of the foam base.



Arch formers were then rounded off on a lathe to give me wheels, and I had started to shape the vehicle.



More features were added, as per the drawing. Some didn't look great, it was at this point I began to learn about the transition between 2D and 3D. I would often mark something with a pencil and forget about it, those things would be easily translated I thought. It was here I learnt otherwise!



It was at this point also that I had a review with my tutors, It was pretty negative. The general form of the car was fine, but features and details had to change. I already knew this though to be honest. So an emergency redesign took place.



I began being a bit more experimental with the clay, trying different things, and generally started getting new features in place.





The feedback was much more positive on this and a pressed on. The above image was used as a base for a basic photoshop render.



I continued to refine elements of one side of the vehicle for a bit longer, and once I felt that I had a good basis, I started to plot points from one side of the vehicle to the other.





For this I used a wooden "bridge" construction, with some rulers taped to it. This was clamped to the table, which also had rulers taped to it, and was also marked up in 100mm squares. I would move the bridge over every 100mm and plot the location of points, in X Y Z format, with an adjustable right angle, some clay for building up to correct height and tipp-ex to mark the exact location. Clay was then built up around the points and shaped back.



General refining then took place on both sides of the vehicle.



Painted di-noc film was applied to the vehicle to check light lines and reflections did not look odd



Rear was shaped in too



Model was then lifted and flipped over to tidy up the underside. It very heavy by this point.



All details were refined, checked, and refined again using fine slicks. The Clay was now finished and ready for the next stage.









It was then taken up the the workshops and I sprayed the model in Clay Peel. It acts in a similar way to plasti-dip, only its not quite as tough. In this case we were using it as part of a release agent mechanism.



The model was then split into sections in order to create several parts of the fibreglass mould. I used clay for the shuttering, held in place with old bicycle spokes. It was a bit gut wrenching pushing these in after my hard work on the clay.



Each part of the mould was layed up. This was was first experience using fibreglass.



After the front and back were done, the top was done next, I integrated a wooden support so once this part had cured the model would be flipped over to easily lay up the remaining parts.



Once all the parts of the mould were complete, it was time to release them off the clay. Which destroyed the clay, so much for the clay peel!



Over this period I had designed the Alloy Wheel design. I then made a model and mirrored it (they are sided) in CAD, and exported the file to the Uni's Rapid Prototype Machine to be made.





Back to the mould, even the clay was destroyed I got a decent mould of it. Here it is after a blast with a pressure washer and several layers of wax.



This was then layered up, to create the final body. The cast came out pretty decent. There was a small area to repair, and just general trimming, tidying and paint prep required.





Once prepared I then sent the body to a local paint shop to be painted. This was the only thing I did not do myself, as I would have done a shocking job! Initially I wanted MG Rover Firefrost Red, but after a few thought I felt the colour was a bit too pink under some lights, and in the end plumped for Ford Tango Red, which under sunlight shines quite an intense almost orange colour. When the picture below was taken I had already started applying vinyls to denote windows and trim, etc.



My wheels were hollowed out on the lathe, and as they were MDF I painted them with Duratec primer in order to stop them absorbing paint. At this point I had received my RP Wheels back, and they were used as masters and casts were taken off them to create a set of four, using some sort of resin, I cant remember the name off the top of my head, but there was a part a and part b.



Final details added and the wheels were painted by myself. It was finished ready for submission biggrin





It then went down to the Swansea Waterfront Museum for the Graduate Exhibition.



There was one particularly bright, hot day, so I took it out into the courtyard for a photoshoot.









I was really pleased with the result, a lot of people don't realise the scale of the thing, so here it is next to my current motor...







Recently, in my spare time I done a photoshop rendering of a mildly refreshed convertible version, I'd love to be able to do a model of it at some point, with working doors, roof, and modelled interior.



I'm really proud of the model, and it now takes pride of place on half of my desk. It was also featured in MG Enthusiast Magazine in August 2011, and I'm currently in the middle of sorting features with AROnline, MG Car Club, and MG Owners Club.

Not long after I graduated I managed to get a job in the Automotive Industry as a Graduate Model Maker. I had the opportunity to work on all sorts of full scale prototypes and show cars for various manufacturers. Unfortunately I was made redundant back in October 2012, so I'm currently job hunting again!

Feel free to be critical about my design, to me it was what I envisaged and wanted an MG to look like. I know my design work is not up to par with others, but since this project I enjoy the model making far more anyway. I like being able to bring sketches on a piece of paper to life.

So, yeah, thats me. A long first post I know, but I felt it an ideal way to start off here. I hope you've enjoyed reading it back as much as I did making it, I could keep writing forever as I have hundreds of photos of it through the stages.

Cheers,

Ben smile















Edited by BenRichards89 on Thursday 21st February 01:10

Zad

12,695 posts

235 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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Blimey, that's a LOT of work! I hope this gets seen from the General Gassing forum, as it deserves a much bigger readership than just the Scale Model sub-forum.

Britain has a huge reputation for automotive design and engineering. It looks like that reputation is in safe hands!

slomax

6,646 posts

191 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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Hi Ben,

I'm an MDes final year at Coventry on the transport course.

Your work looks great. I'm really liking that Photoshop render! Im not particularly advanced at photoshop. I prefer chopping photos together as opposed to raw rendering. I'd be interested to see your vehicle packaging if you have some.

Have you done much Alias stuff?

There is a link to my coroflot on my profile, but unfortunately it's about 8 months out of date, i simply haven't had any time to update it.

Do you have an online folio?

How did you find glassing the clay? That's the method I'll be using for my final model, milling is just too expensive.

Edited by slomax on Thursday 10th January 02:58

Red Firecracker

5,276 posts

226 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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Massively impressive final result and an extremely interesting process to get there as well, I can see me borrowing some of those ideas. Congratulations.

perdu

4,884 posts

198 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
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Ben that is marvellous work, hope you get the next job soon.

The modelling is excellent too, just ideal for us in here to gain ideas and confidence from!

And the car, hits all the buttons for me…

I am an MG owner from way back
I am an artist from even further back wink
I am a modeller from almost as far back as the artist bit

Lovely work..

You won't stay away as you develop ideas and techniques, will you?

The modeller in us all wants to join the trip along with you.

Like RF I have seen aspects of this working that may translate into future modelling projects.

BenRichards89

Original Poster:

661 posts

134 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
quotequote all
Cheers guys. Thanks for the replies.

Is there I way I can get this moved to General Gassing as it is an introduction as well?

Red Firecracker

5,276 posts

226 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
quotequote all
How long did it take you to get the symmetry to that level? I understand the plot points and building up to those, but did you use anything extra, such as guides or masks, to get the fine details/shapes so spot-on and symmetrical?

BenRichards89

Original Poster:

661 posts

134 months

Thursday 10th January 2013
quotequote all
Red Firecracker said:
How long did it take you to get the symmetry to that level? I understand the plot points and building up to those, but did you use anything extra, such as guides or masks, to get the fine details/shapes so spot-on and symmetrical?
I cant remember entirely off the top of my head, but looking back at the photos I have it seems to have taken around 2 weeks. Which sounds about right.

With the various measuring equipment I had and the bridge, I could plot points pretty much as close together as I wanted. I also had some 2mm and 5mm low tack tape to mark out areas. This was particularly handy for larger features down the sides of the vehicle and the sides of the bonnet as I could plot the most significant points and join them together with the tape.

If anything didn't look quite right then it was checked again and altered as necessary.

From the start of the clay to the finished model it took approximately 4 and a half months. Bearing in mind I had other coursework to complete in between and a part-time job back at home on the weekends.

groomi

9,317 posts

242 months

Friday 11th January 2013
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Nice job. Coventry?

Brings back memories for me. Must admit that my resin cast didn't come out so well so I spent far too long making the final model look good. Can only find a pic of the clay at the moment - was a long time ago!

g3org3y

20,606 posts

190 months

Friday 11th January 2013
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Great write up/work. Thanks for sharing smile

Wish I did something interesting like that at uni.

2 sMoKiN bArReLs

30,230 posts

234 months

Friday 11th January 2013
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clap

Well done that young person.

Lazygraduate

1,789 posts

160 months

Friday 11th January 2013
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Really enjoyed reading that. Well done!

BenRichards89

Original Poster:

661 posts

134 months

Sunday 13th January 2013
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groomi said:
Nice job. Coventry?[/img]
Swansea smile

Cheers for the comments guys.

thebigmacmoomin

2,796 posts

168 months

Sunday 13th January 2013
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Could quite easily see that on the road as a full production car, it looks brilliant.

Think it does need a small boot spoiler like the first orignal sketch as the boot area is quite large & plain.

longshot

3,286 posts

197 months

Sunday 13th January 2013
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clap

Moominho

893 posts

139 months

Sunday 13th January 2013
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Wow, that is fantastic, well done!

miniman

24,827 posts

261 months

Sunday 13th January 2013
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Wow. That is all kinds of awesome.

les3002

341 posts

196 months

Sunday 13th January 2013
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Awesome job! I've recently started trying to sketch cars, trying being the appropriate word..... As an engineer I find it quite hard to turn the image in my head into a drawn representation without it looking like a small child drew it!

Do you have any tips for a beginner?

LaurasOtherHalf

21,429 posts

195 months

Sunday 13th January 2013
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clap

Lovely thread, hope the job hunting goes well thumbup

The new bonnet crease looks good on the updated render & I like the overall "face" the car too, it's a family look I could imagine working well on a few different sized cars,

One thing i think would look good would be a black A pillar, to make a visor style front glasshouse.


BenRichards89

Original Poster:

661 posts

134 months

Sunday 13th January 2013
quotequote all
Cheers Guys.

Thank you for all your nice comments. It kind of makes doing it even more worthwhile.

Once I have the funds I intend on making a model of the convertible and perhaps a DTM/GT3 Style Car as well. If that happens I will post build threads here for you guys to keep an eye on. That maybe for a while yet though.

In the meantime, while getting about publicising myself and my current abilities, along with uploading to online portfolio sites I have started a facebook page about my design work. If you do like my work and want to keep an eye on what I'm up to, please "like" the page. Not only will I be immensely grateful, but it will contribute to helping me building on my pubilc profile, and my efforts to get back into the automotive industry.

The page can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/BenRichardsDesign

Ben smile