blog.miroslav-dimitrov.net

Time for an update!

I am sharing couple of WIP images on the Aston’s rear as well as some work made by Peter on the wheels. Peter has started initial 3D model on the wheel/rims design as you can see and although there are some corrections needed, I thinkg it’s getting there already. With a little input on my side, I think we’ll be able to close the wheels soon and move on to the exterior as there are many things to be sorted out there – especially the body side.

I am still not showing you the interior of the car, that will come shortly after Christmas. Before that I have other things to share with you on this project and more to see of Peter’s work too!

Oppinions anyone?

Here is the Auto & Design Issue 179 featuring some of my sketches on the 458 Italia Interior. The whole interior and many other bits on the car were designed by our little team based in Maranello. The 458 is a very important product for Ferrari and we all gave our best for it!

Oh yesss, the time has arrived to show you this…. finally!!!!! The Aston Martin V8 HydroElectric-Hybrid Concept!!! A project of my portfolio that I started a long time ago, but just now is the moment to share with you the development process of this car. That is going to be a serious team project involving in-deep design process and here on my blog you will see everything – sketches, renderings, 3D Model, technical…all the stuff! You can comment, criticize…worship or even damn the project if you like.

How It Started?
It started back in the 2006…well, I did a sketch of something I liked…but I just didn’t know what do do with it, sure… that didn’t stop me of making even more sketches on the topic. The problem was that I wasn’t quite convinced with the car, so I decided to give it some time until this thing takes a further shape in my head.  Then again in 2007 I continued with it, thinking at the time I had it resolved….well, I didn’t! The problem wasn’t just sketching it, I wanted to create an interesting and an unusual car, therefore instead of endlessly drawing something I am not too sure about, I decided to wait once again because I really liked this one and I wanted to finish it all-over!

Design and why Aston Martin?
If that thing looks wrong to you from the first sketches…..hmmm…you’re probably right! Or maybe not! When I decided I want to name this vehicle Aston Martin I realised…hold on, I am not going for the journey in persuading the ultimate beautiful and elegant car. Without doubt the Astons are pretty looking vehicles and so they have always been, however in my opinion it’s a brand that’s hardly been “investigated” design-wise. Most of the works I’ve seen for Aston are some design ques that keep repeating on and on (particularly after the AMV8 Concept came out in 2002). Therefore, instead of making another boring car for my portfolio I thought some fun is needed and here we are – doing something out of the box and driven on the contrary of what the Aston Martins are all about.

While doing sketches in the year of 2007 (as mentioned above), Lamborghini showed their Reventon to the public and I was quite annoyed to see they had explored the Aeronautics kind of design language. I was already on the subject of applying that kind of design language on the Aston – it was fitting very well the body shell with multiple braking surfaces changing directions and giving the car this Stealth look. I continued doing few things here…few things there then I stopped and waited until better times arrive for this one. However, those of you who visit Car Design News regularly may have encountered this project featured in my online portfolio at the CDN – I refer to the 4th image in the gallery bellow. The first three images are some thumbnails sketches showing how this project began. (2006 & 2007).

After giving it the break for 1-2 years, I started thinking of the Aston again at the end of 2008. Peter already proposed me to combine our skills together and create something cool and I thought this is the perfect opportunity. Knowing what kind of work Peter is capable of, that boosted my imagination further and I began thinking of even more details and in-deep design development of the car was implemented. I let my mind go free in terms of package and the idea of having alternative fuel used in the car was also quite appealing to me. All this resulted in a 3 seater sports car keeping more or less the same design language with hard brutal surfacing, but now what’s more interesting is how the car is put together. The unusual package of the car measures about 4.65m in length, 2.0m width and 1.15m in height (or a little bit less). It is capable of fitting 3 passengers (1 driver in the centre and 2 passengers on each side of the driver – much like McLaren F1 layout). The vehicle has interesting structure inside made from carbon fibre and reinforced in places with casted Titanium or Aluminium bits. It is powered by front mounted V8 hydrogen internal combustion engine (HyICE) driving the front axle and two in-wheel motors fitted in the rear wheels of the vehicle. The car should be capable of running on liquid Hydrogen or electric power individually as well as utilizing both power sources at the same time – running on the internal combustion engine and benefiting from the instant torque of the electric motors while accelerating – something like K.E.R.S. in the Formula 1 cars. There will be more to see with the next posts where additional sketches and information will be revealed.

To give more light on the team subject I think it’s appropriate to introduce my partner on this venue – Peter Tarkanyi. He is a great guy I must say and you will have the pleasure to enjoy his amazing work throughout the project. You will see what I mean with this, really, just be patient with us! For your information the Aston Martin will be a mix of Hi-End poly and NURBS modeling using different software during the our project.

Before ending today’s novel, I would like to point your attention in some technical but interesting facts related to my car. There are also some links of existing hydrogen internal combustion vehicles. Enjoy reading!

Liquid Hydrogen – physical facts /source Wikipedia/
Hydrogen internal combustion engine vehicle – definition of the HyICE engine /source Wikipedia/
HydrogenCarsNow – Website featuring a good list of vehicles using this source of energy
BMW H2R Concept Car – BMW Official Website
BMW H2R Concept Car – /source Car Design Online/
Italdesign Vadho Concept – Images

NEXT – More sketches of the Aston Martin showing what’s inside the car /sections for example/ and basic 3D Alias model for proportions…

Here we are with the Maserati again! I am sharing with you few sketches I did – mainly concerning the front of the vehicle. I am trying to squeeze some spare time for this project and get it finished as I do not intend to invest too much of time on it. Still, I am having fun drawing this vehicle and I want to create something  that is cool….and finished too :)
What I can say now is that I am shaping my mind around few concept directions that already emerge to me and they will be better illustrated with the upcoming sketches. So far it has been fun sketching the different ideas but I could go on like this forever and it is time to put the things in order. I am a kind of tempted to start a 3D model of this, it could boost the Maserati project a lot. Anyway…more sketches and renderings coming next. I hope you like these ones for now! Thoughts anyone?

Yeah it was about time to do some work on this one…my tablet was getting dusty at home. This project could be running slow but I will finish it one day :) Now…seriously…I still look for a good theme “surface-wise” for this car and if having more time I will bring it closer to a defined concept that has something more to show. I found few potentially interesting solutions for the front wing that worth exploring. All in all when available and when having the proper mood, I will continue developing this one. I will do it! Feedback?

miro

Dear all,

I am sure you’ve noticed my inactivity in the recent months, this is due to the fact that I’ve been quite busy at work and not only there… therefore I didn’t have much time to spend on the blog. But no worries, things are looking absolutely great and the financial crisis doesn’t bother me at all or reflect on my mood in a way :)))) There is a lot more to come….and I am catching up with it!

I’ve been thinking and organizing this FAQ page for a long time and it’s finally here. It is designed especially for the young and talented ones (of course, girls are always welcome!) passionate about chasing a career in car/transportation design. I’ve been receiving a lot of e-mails with different questions, on the base of which I designed the page, I hope you’ll find important information on how to start, design schools, preparing a portfolio, getting into the industry and so on. Professional designers also feel Welcome to contribute with their comments to the page!

best,
miro

Auto & Design Issue 173 showing on page 43 my sketches on the Ferrari California Interior. At the time when I arrived in Maranello, the Ferrari California was already completed and I had to make these for Auto & Design, the actual interior was designed again in Maranello with the help of Bertone. My next projects was sketch program on the 599XX! Cool!!!!!

Hello to everyone!!!

Here I am showing you some work I did for a client earlier this summer. I usually keep client’s work strictly confidential and never disclose it, however this time for some various reasons the project has been stopped at a stage and further development on design has been compromised and I have the privilege to reveal you quite a lot of the design work I did.

As said on the website, I was hired by a customer in the US to give the initial kick on a project that was to be developed into series of production vehicles all using hybrid technology and sharing identical platforms.

What we’ve got here is a classical American pick-up truck – as defined from the initial brief and it is an electric/hybrid alternative to its current rivals on the market such as Dodge Ram, Ford F150, GMC Sierra etc. The new vehicle outlined in the brief was not to be too futuristic looking, nor too similar to the current ones on the roads /the ones that it will try to steal a market share of/. it is powered by Li-Ion batteries as a small combustion engine was a kind of considered too.

The interior was designed according to the requirements of the customer. As with the exterior, the vehicle has similar interior specifications to its rivals in this class. New features like wide use of electronic devices and touch screens are standard for all the electric cars planned for going into production.

Well….for the rest I’ll leave you go through the sketches and have a look yourself. Feel free to let me know what think of this! I appreciate it….many thanks!

yours
miro

 

Hello to everyone!

Time to get back to posting! Finally!

According to the statistics of this web blog I found out that many visitors are interested into Tutorials and “how to” make the things. Also, quite a lot of you contacted me asking for some help on how to improve their skills. Therefore I decided to share even more of my knowledge and experience with making a DVD.

However, before doing it (although I’ve started working on that already) I though it’s a good idea to ask the visitors what they should be most interested to find in the DVD. Is it that you’re more interested into sketching and how to build the line drawing or more into rendering. Maybe both.
In any case I have decided to put no less than 2-3 VIDEO tutorials on the DVD (not only 1 like the ones you find in the internet). In addition to this I will iclude some detailed step-by-step tutorials you haven’t seen yet and bunch of tips that I am sure will be pretty useful to all interested…

I am opened to any advice/request on what to include in the DVD. I’ll be most grateful if you give me a hand with this in order to create DVD that helps most! Feel free to contact me or post your needs at will.

Cheers,
Miro

The saga continues with this…
Part 03

Here we are with few more sketches on the subject. My mind is getting more and more involved into this… I am still in the search of the best shape for this car. To be continued….

Part 02

Hello to all!

Here is a small update on the Maserati. The project is still in it’s initial stage where the main proportions and surfaces are to be decided. I remembered what pleasure is to work on a supercar….yeah!
More sketches coming soon! Stay tuned!

Part 01

Feedback?

yours,
miro

Hello to everyone!

Let’s kick off with something…This is my virgin sketch for the new blog. As some of you may know I am working on a Maserati Sports Car for my portfolio, so here is an update sketch on the subject. Hope you like it! Feedback is always welcome! Will post some new sketches when available.

“We are committed to motorsport, we intend to stay committed and our cars are the better for it”
BMW

BMW T1 Motorsport is a supercar devoted to BMW’s Motorsport success…

After many years of success on the motor track and plenty of models who won any kind of sport event in the world, BMW hasn’t produced anything like a car to celebrate it, yet? Why? When cars like Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche didn’t exist yet, BMW already won plenty of victories at that time and proved to be a great company inspired from the competition.

In the late 1930s BMW 328 was a car capable of beating anything in the 2-liter capacity, no matter what the terrain is. The Model scored more than 100 victories in a very short time. It was BMW again who was capable of beating cars with three times its litre capacity in the early 60s, thanks to 700 coupe. Even later on, it was BMW who seized the world’s first championship recorded by a turbo-charged engine, it was BMW who delivered 6 litres of VI2 energy to motivate McLaren in epic confrontation with Porsche and Mercedes in global GT racing and win Le Mans on its debut and wrote down the record for speed by a serial car in 1998.
Unfortunately, this is information close only to people familiar with the sport history of the Munich Company. For the people who are not interested from that, BMW is just one car manufacturer. Manufacturer famous with the production of good quality motorcycles, cars and mountain bikes.
So I decided, car to commemorate the BMW’s Motorsport glory is needed…
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Started at the end of 2005, this was a study of a modern luxury car featuring the classical luxury elements & materials over the exterior body. Even the most expensive cars nowadays have metal or aluminum body only and nothing like exotic materials to compliment the good design or execution of the car.
This is the reason I decided to have such a concept included in my portfolio. Doing the classical limo or just refining and styling it with new materials such as gold coated grill for example was not what I needed. While having fun, I tried to be bold and brave when playing with this project, using finest quality red wood frame, high-gloss see through glass panels and high quality leather too.
I also planned some interesting conceptual solutions such as the front assembling panels of V12 Limo and the way the doors are going to be fixed for the body side.

Dacia Logan 2012 Sedan/Coupe was a project that was due to be presented on my interview for an exterior design position in the brand new design centre of Renault Design in Bucharest, Romania. I was given an assignment to produce some sketches in my spare time.

Instead of spending time digging into one direction or making a dozen sketches related to one design approach, I decided to have more diversity within my work by shooting in different directions – some of them not typical to the current Dacia production line. Dacia is a car maker known to be producing low-budget cars. However, my own opinion is that even the low-cost vehicles on the market should benefit from their own dignity (a chance to stand-out from the rest), attractive look or just a smart design that doesn’t let the vehicle down.
This is the reason why in my sketches I was mostly seeking for something that can help Dacia to “shine” on this already overcrowded market niche. Some of the drawings show a moderately aggressive vehicle but that’s a current tendency followed by all car manufacturers, other drawings show a vehicle with classic automotive attitude/stance – something that BMW or Maserati could possibly do. Although very hard to design for production, It would be very interesting if Dacia comes up with a concept/prototype based on the Logan but tending to be more like a limousine – a little bit bigger, longer wheel base, classical automotive attitude and design that isn’t shy to speak for itself.

Hi all!

Here is one tutorial that I made on a special request from Allan McDonald, owner of the website: http://designertechniques.com/. Click on post to read the full tutorial.

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