Dashboard Modeling

Hi all, this is my first post so take it easy on me. That said, I’m a senior industrial design major finishing up my capstone project and am at the modeling phase with have a few questions. For my capstone I’m redesigning the dashboard of a VW Golf (projected 8th or 9th generation model) and will need to produce multiple full scale iterative models based on my sketches. Heres the thing, this is my first attempt at modeling transportation design, as I’ve always done consumer products and a bit of furniture. I’m wondering what the best way to go about it is… I’ve watched a few tutorials and it looks like I’ll use blue polystyrene foam for the base and then clay on top of the basic shape? As I said before, I’ve modeled a lot of smaller products during my education but nothing quite this large and am a bit anxious as it’s semi uncharted waters to me.
Thanks,

  • Mike

Welcome to the board. Welcome to the world of large scale clay models! Multiple iterative models of a full dashboard is an ambitious undertaking, but really the best way to work out your ideas if you have the time.

We discussed this a bit last year in this post. Clay Modeling Questions I still recommend trying to locate a copy of the mentioned magazine.

You might try roughing out your first model or two from foam and leaving the surface detail under-developed. If you cover and sculpt the final in clay, about 90% of your time will be spent doing surface work in clay.

For your first model you may want to concentrate on roughing out the forms and playing in that aspect of it, working only in the foam with surform type tools. This will allow you much more freedom of exploration/iteration in big shapes than a combination of foam and clay would allow.

Any further questions, fire away.

Thanks so much for the reply! I picked up some cheap polystyrene from homedepot and laminated it together with gorilla glue. I’ll post some progress pics once I get a shape going!

Mike, let me pass on some tribal knowledge from previous “modeling” topics. They might save you some time/grief.

Blue Foam is Melting?

3D Hand Modeling Processes

Clay Modeling Questions

Alternatives to Modeling Foam

Yellow Foam

Urethane Foam Replacement