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Tony Catignani - Interview
As program leader of transport design at Umeå Institute of Design, one of the
worlds leading automotive design schools, Tony Catignani has good idea of what
it takes to succeed in design.
Mikael Lugnegard,
Pencil Sketching Video Tutorial
To celebrate the creation of his new web site Mikael has put together a new
video tutorial. In it he talks through his methods for creating a powerful
pencil sketch.
All above pictures
and video property of Ryan Skelley








RYAN SKELLEY
www.rds-designs.co.uk
My name is Ryan Skelley, and I recently graduated from Coventry University with
a 1st Class Bachelor of Arts degree in Automotive Design. This included my
‘professional enhancement’, a 7 month internship at Land Rover’s G-Deck design
centre. I was also chosen along with a number of students to represent the
university at the New Designer’s exhibition in London, where I demonstrated my
final year project to the industry. I want to use this article in
DesignerTechniques to talk to you about the project I completed during my final
year at Coventry University.
The final year Automotive, Transport, and Product design students at Coventry
University are required to produce a 1/4 scale model of a design of their
choosing. Myself and my family are all 4x4 fanatics and were absolutely bowled
over when I got my internship at Land Rover, so it seemed only natural that I
should design an off-road vehicle for my final project. During the research
stage of my project I became totally enamoured with a particular film and the
race which it follows. Dust to Glory by Dana Brown is an incredible film about
the Tecate Score Baja 1000, its participants, its history, the vehicles and the
brutal punishment that they must endure for 30 hours straight. The idea behind
the race is simple; get from point A to point B through a series of hidden
checkpoints as quickly as possible. To finish first you must first finish.
With this in mind I began to design my vehicle. I had done a massive amount of
research and this ultimately ended up cluttering my view a little. One thing you
need to remember when designing is that less is more. It's fine to do a lot of
research, but I found the best option is to then pick just a few key pieces that
will define the styling and purpose of the vehicle and really inject these into
the design. The other thing I was constantly thinking of whilst generating ideas
was my own model making abilities and the facilities available to me - I was
going to have to produce a full 1/4 scale version of this vehicle. Luckily, due
to my placement a year previous, Land Rover had extended the use of some of
their facilities to me; therefore I knew I had the possibility of rapid
prototype a large amount of the model.
The traditional route, is to produce an orthographic drawing of your model and
then translate this into clay, eventually creating a resin or fibreglass cast
for show. With the advance of digital technology and increasing use of CAD,
rapid prototyping is gradually becoming more and more popular, whether it is
stereolithography (SLA) or milling into foam, both options provide the ability
to perfectly replicate 3D data effortlessly. Although the cost is much higher,
many universities and schools are now investing in the machinery and software
required. Without this technology I would not have produced the vehicle I did,
nor would I have designed it as such, I would have created something much more
achievable via the more traditional methods.
The way I personally tend to work is to generate lots of small sketches; front,
back, side, and so forth... and then move into 3D as soon as possible where I
refine the overall stance and proportions of the vehicle. I then use this data
as a new starting point, either printing out or simply using a tablet to sketch
over my CAD model, tidying up the details and filling in the blanks, such as
wheels and accessories. At the same time as doing this I am constantly changing
things on the 3D model (as per my new sketches), as well as rendering out
isolated parts to check how the light falls on specific surfaces, helping me to
achieve the highlights I require. One massive recommendation I have to you all
is save your files incrementally! There is nothing worse than having the program
crash on you only to realise you hadn't saved the file or you can't remember
what you named it. A simple three digit system works best starting at 001 and
working upwards. I always break my 3D model down into parts too, so I will have
a folder labelled "wheels", within that you will find "research", "model", and "screencaps".
It's this organisation from the start that will save you a lot of time and
hassle in the long run.
One of the problems that I ran into whilst producing my model was that due to
the large amount of components and the lack of manufacturing time, I needed to
send certain parts to be rapid prototyped as soon as the data was complete. This
is brilliant in one respect as the earlier you start the earlier you finish, but
the downside is that you are effectively constraining yourself to certain hard
points very early on in the design. For example, I finished the chassis and
suspension of my model very early on and so sent it to get manufactured - this
meant that I now had to design my bodywork to fit these exact points as they
could no longer be physically changed. This is where traditional techniques work
better as with clay the design isn't frozen until you start casting the
fibreglass.
Stereolithography (SLA) and Selective Laser Sintering (SLS) are the two
processes I used to manufacture the components of my model. Both are a form of
3D printing but whereas SLA is a resin based solution, SLS is powder based.
As parts began to roll off the machines I made sure to shimmy them up to each
other, checking tolerances and making sure that sections slotted together
correctly. This is another big factor you must consider when working in 3D with
the intentions of rapid prototyping parts, and can result in a lot of wasted
time if not done correctly. Whenever you are modelling two parts that sit on top
of one another, or slot together, always offset one of the surfaces so that
there is a gap. It only needs to be a small gap, but also remember your scale; a
small gap on a full size model is a minute gap on a scale model. I have fallen
into this pit more than once, and it resulted in three days solid sanding in
order to fit 5 alloys into their tires. Not fun!
These parts then needed to be sanded, primed, sanded again, primed again, and
then a final sanding before paint. The SLA and SLS materials differ highly when
it comes to sanding, and their material properties could also affect your choice
of process for specific components. SLA is relatively easy to sand (dependant on
the complexity of your design) and can be done with wet and dry no problem,
starting with an 800, slowly moving up to a 1200. The material finish is
brilliant and tends to lend itself to shiny, gloss surfaces. SLS requires a lot
more elbow grease but is a much stronger material and is less likely to fracture
or shatter everywhere. SLS can give nearly as good a finish as SLA but will
require a lot of work to get it there; in this respect SLS lends itself more
towards matt painted surfaces. The primer used on all the components was a thick
primer/filler in order to fill in surface imperfections and speed up the sanding
process.
After all the sanding the components were ready for painting. This was completed
in two stages, with all the chassis and suspension being painted one colour nice
and early on (due to them being finished first) and everything else being
painted later. Always try to paint the same colours at the same time and in the
same conditions (same paint gun, drying conditions, etc...) in order to achieve
the exact same colour on every panel. Of course this applies more on something
like my own model which is made from multiple components as opposed to a large,
single bodied model. For me the painting process was mainly a hands off job, I
would help out where I could, but to be honest this is one job I would
definitely not trust myself with and wanted to leave it to the professionals.
One other thing to consider is that if you are painting multiple components, you
will need to mount them to something in order to paint both front and back and
allow them to dry. For the pieces on my model I used hot glue to attach a small
10cm piece of dowel the back of the component, somewhere that would not be seen
in the final assembly. I made sure that the end of the dowel was sharp and then
used this to mount all of the components into a large block of blue foam. This
makes it very easy to hold the component in order to paint it and allows for you
to reach the back of the part with ease. It also provides a perfect mount for
drying and the hot glue should come off with a small amount of force, just be
careful, you really don't want any accidents at this stage.
Remember to think smartly about how you intend to display your model too. Think
about the back drop, lighting, even the height of the table it is going to be
sitting on. If it is an off-road model maybe you want it sat on rocks, if it's a
race car maybe a race track, if it is a boat maybe in water, or maybe less is
more. Different techniques work for different models, but it is something that
you should always bear in mind.
At the end of our year, after a solid 6 months of blood, sweat and tears, we
presented our work at the annual Coventry University degree show. The show
consisted of a weeklong public viewing and finished with a dedicated industry
night before being re-opened for another 3 weeks due to the considerable amount
of interest. Certain models and animations, including my own, were then chosen
specifically for the New Designers Exhibition in London, a weeklong display of
not only automotive and transport, but product, furniture, architecture, and
anything else design related from universities all around the country, open to
both the public and industry professionals. You can view some of the Coventry
degree show over at Car Design News.
I hope that this small slice of my model making experience helps some of you out
there, it's by no means a definitive guide but it should hopefully steer some of
you in the right direction, avoiding some of the pitfalls and perils along the
way. It's no easy job producing a 1/4 scale model of anything, but the results
always speak for themselves and every ounce of time and effort you put into your
project will shine through in the end.
To see more work from Ryan, you can visit his website at,
www.rds-designs.co.uk
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page last updated;
2014-06-15
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