thebeerbaron

Wednesday is supposed to be my day to work on this thing, but work ran late and I spent some time on the 818 forum dealing with posts there. I got maybe a solid hour in on the model, which is less than I'd like but satisfying. I'm warming up some clay now and will put it on and take more pictures before I go to bed.

In addition to trimming away excess bulk, I started fleshing in some curves. Along the way I discovered that for now, the "hump" to go over the engine is not requiring too much design thought - it's hiding nicely inside the curves I have laid out for the rear fenders. I pulled out my sketch pile and used the grids on my drawings to locate certain landmarks in the body - the edge of the windshield and the start of the rear fender hump. Once I knew where those were and what height I expected them to reach, I could carve away the clay more easily.

I added a hint of shape to the all-important nose while I was in there. I'm also trying an idea on that rear - after Monday's discussion about how designs need to shock, I thought I would try revising the "natural" curve that I gave the tail when I was first carving it. Looking at it from the couch, it's nowhere near right yet. But it's just clay, it will get set right.

Here are a couple views of the current state, as well as the pile of clay shavings that have accumulated. And my tools. I should do a video or a series of pictures on how I use these, since I took to heart your input that some of you have never seen people work with clay like this.
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You can see there's a lot more shape now, it's lost a lot of weight. You can also see where I've scratched in some areas that need building up - places where I'll add in clay later tonight (it's still not warm enough - I don't think the oven setting was right). There's a divot in the nose that needs to be filled in and the corner of the body as it runs between the front and rear wheels needs building up - that needs to be much more square, at least initially. And those wheel arches I had carved so nicely are now ruined as I cut the clay back more flush with the wheels. I think it actually needs to come out 1/8" of an inch or so proud of the wheels, but that's not my central concern right now.

So yes, as soon as this clay is warm I'll add it to the model and call it a night. It'll be set up very nicely by tomorrow evening, when I should have a spare hour or so to fettle with it.

If you've noticed the pictures are getting a little better, it's thanks to my new cell phone. They're still terrible, but they're better than the old iPhone ones. Even though this phone has a flash, the pictures come out better without it. The phone is a Thunderbolt on Verizon's LTE network. What's amazing is that the phone's internet connection is reliably faster than my cable modem. Very refreshing after suffering through AT&T's network woes here in NYC.

--edited--

Here's the last pic for the night. I added some clay to that ridge and flattened out the face between the wheels. It's hard to see here, but where there was a bullnose curve from the deck to the side, it's now square-ish. Perfect for me to flesh out how the body will curve between the two wheels.
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