Motion Research

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I am an automotive model-maker. I’ve been making models sense 1968. Model-making to me means using clay. I often work in other materials but my expertise is clay modeling. I’ve spent my life tucked away in different studios working with small groups of people participating in what is usually called automotive design. I like to think of this activity as the collaborative effort of three disciplines; designer, engineer and modeler. The modeler’s responsibility is usually to find ways that the model can meet the needs of both of the other groups without sacrificing the esthetic qualities of the design or the engineering qualities of manufacturing. This requires the skill of being able to accurately make surfaces that meet engineering requirements and the esthetic understanding to capture what the designer intended. These two qualities are often at odds and require creative solutions to be presented by the modeler as well as often some compromises by the other two disciplines. In that the clay model represents the final product. The end result of this effort will determine the success or failure of the product. After a 2-D selection process, designs usually get into 3-D with the onset of a scale model. The scale can be 1/2, 3/8, 1/4, or 1/5 depending on the studio preference and the need. ¼ scale is probably the most popular. Sense the digital age I’ve not heard designers insisting that scales must be cheated to make them look real. This was a misconception to begin with and it now makes it much too difficult and time consuming to bump up the final scale design to full size. Any error in the scale model is magnified by whatever the value of the scale is when it is digitally made full size. In a fast developing digital world I believe that very soon there will not be the need for nearly as many modelers as there were in the past. The computer has already greatly changed the way modelers are used. The needs for model-making have evolved in a way that has separated the discipline into 3 separate but overlapping types of work. Modelers are used as computer operators who use tools such as Alias to turn 2-D designs into 3-D designs for designers. They are also used to operate and clean-up the models that are cut by machine into either scale models or full size models. And, of course they are still used to make aesthetic changes or corrections in the cut models that were not seen in the 2-D computer phase. Fortunately, until the 3-D digital tools become more developed there will still be a place for people like me.