...and a parting shot.
Notes about this project: This was started in January of 2006 and finished in early June of 2006, at the Royal College of Art in London, England. The course is a 2 year course, with the first year being devoted primarily to ensuring that all your skills are up to snuff through doing practice and Industry-sponsored projects. You are also required to complete your dissertation in the 1st year - this is a 10,000 word essay which is generally used as a jumping off point for your thesis. The dissertation generally (though not necessarily) serves as a background to make the thesis defensible. First semester of second year is spent developing your thesis project - sketching and research, and sketching, sketching, sketching. I also did quite a bit of freelance work through this period as the course is very expensive. The dissertation needs to be supported by expert opinion and I was lucky enough to make contact with ex-McLaren and Ferrari designer, John Barnard, who kindly allowed me to interview him at his studio outside of Woking.
The model was shown at the 2006 Vehicle Design Thesis show. I was very fortunate to be hired by Ford/Europe at this show. Being at the "RCA Thesis show" was brilliant - a dream come true for me. I was later hired by Humber College in Toronto Canada, a chance that I jumped at as it allowed me to be closer to my family... I now teach Industrial and Automotive Design.
The thesis model? It lasted 3 weeks. I was getting married in Kuala Lumpur in August of 2006 ( I had met my wife in England, but she is Malaysian), and was then moving to Köln, Germany - and as I said - at this point I was FLAT broke. So I couldn't ship the model anywhere, and the RCA has exceedingly limited space... after all that work? It ended it's life in the RCA dumpster. But it had done its job...
I estimate that the model took me a grand total of about 1300 to 1400-odd hours. I know that this may sound like an exaggeration, but these are incredibly time-consuming items to create - especially when you are doing them virtually unaided. In the final 2 months I worked 7 day weeks, 14.5 hours a day Monday to Friday (School opened at 7:30 and closed at midnight). Sunday the school was closed - so I'd sleep in 'til 9 and then do flatwork (graphics, sketching, digital images) from noon to midnight. Admittedly, there was time for the odd pub-night worked into that! In the final week I completed 2 "all nighters" and estimate that I got 20 hours of sleep total. The payoff? The model was done 1 week early, which allowed me to do some final tweaks to the boards and to prepare my presentation... and of course - to sleep in. :-)
Thanks for taking the time to browse these pics. Cheers - Bruce.