ART OF DRIVE: AUTOMOTIVE DESIGNER JAMES NISSEN

Words Craig Metros Photography Luke Ray.

Our Art of Drive series interviews artists, designers and photographers to find out what inspires them.

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” How many times are we asked this during our wonder years? When James Nissen was growing up in Melbourne, his consistent and quick response was "Car Designer".  However, Nissen had two passions; cars and jet aircraft. His two dream careers were sketching future automotive concepts and piloting state-of-the-art military aircraft. Two very solid careers, both requiring serious commitment and focus. After high school, Nissen went on to pursue both dreams.

In primary school, the young Nissen started drawing cartoons that eventually led to drawing planes. In high school, planes gave way to sketching cars. "At the time, I found the Ford vs. Holden car culture in Australia very intriguing," recalls Nissen. "Planes are much more engineering driven and I thought designing cars would be so much more interesting."

Another creative discovery during high school was graffiti. "Along with cars, I also started sketching graffiti. I really enjoyed translating those smaller sketches to a much larger scale," Nissen recalls. "Graffiti really helped my sketching and designing process. It was a great medium to push and evolve shapes and line even though it was two dimensional." High school wasn't just about spray painting blank walls and sketching cars. Nissen excelled in chemistry, mathematics, physics, and visual communications, he graduated from high school in 2003 and started Monash University in 2004. Monash is a local university that offers a world class Industrial and Automotive Design program.  His focus was car design and his short-term goal was to land an internship with Ford or Holden. That happened in 2007 when the Ford Motor Company offered him a year-long internship at their Research and Design Centre in Campbellfield, North of Melbourne. Nissen returned to Monash in 2008 to finish his final year. After graduation, the humble, highly-motivated, and extremely talented Nissen started working as a designer for Ford.

With the Monash years behind him and his new career just beginning, Nissen still had jets on his mind. In 2009, Nissen went to the Avalon Air Show. "That show really rekindled my passion to fly jets," remembers Nissen. His curiosity for what it would take to pursue his second dream was growing. By mid 2009, programs coming into the Ford Research and Design Centre were slowing down.

Nissen took advantage of the down time and contacted the College of Aeronautical Science at the University of Queensland. This is where he needed to complete an aeronautical mathematics and physics course before being eligible to apply for a job as a pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force. After weeks of contemplation, Nissen decided he wanted no regrets in his life. He signed up to begin pilot aptitude testing with the Australian Defence Force. At the end of 2009, Nissen resigned from Ford.

"I started my studies almost immediately. It was going very well and I was passing all my initial tests, " a very keen Nissen recalls. He passed the first and second stage of pilot aptitude testing with ease. "I was passing everything and that was making my experience even more enjoyable," explains Nissen. The last stage of training before being qualified to enlist with the Royal Australian Air Force was Nissen's flight screening. This was a two week flying course in Tamworth, New South Wales.        

In May of 2010, Nissen was notified that he passed the flight course and was offered a position in the Royal Australian Army as a Helicopter pilot. Nissen really wanted to pilot jet aircraft. After making a very difficult decision, Nissen returned to Ford as a car designer.

"I'm very content now knowing I pursued both dreams since I was a kid."

Nissen, who will be moving to Cologne, Germany to work in the Ford Merkenich design studio this August, seems to be very happy and comfortable with designing cars again. "The amount of study leading up to all the testing I had to go through, has helped me to stay even more focused and work harder these days as a designer," according to Nissen. He is currently working on advanced programs and is really enjoying it. Nissen is known for coming in the studio on weekends to brainstorm and sketch advance automotive interiors.  

Nissen still thinks about aircraft in general. "When designing vehicles, whether it's interior or exterior design, aircraft is my greatest source of inspiration," Nissen points out. He still thinks about flying for recreation. As soon as Nissen can afford it, his plan is to start flying lessons to obtain his private pilot's licence.

This article first appeared in Fuel Magazine issue 14.

ART OF DRIVE: DIGITAL HOT ROD ART BY MIKAEL LUGNEGARD

Interview Craig Metros.

Our Art of Drive series interviews artists, designers and photographers to find out what inspires them.

Mikael Lugnegard was born and raised in Northern Sweden. Surrounded by mining towns, “Life was pretty boring,” according to Lugnegard. He enrolled into the UID Design School in Sweden to study Industrial Design. Lugnegard was interested in the artistic and conceptual aspect of design. He felt there was too much focus on engineering. After two and a half years, he left the university to start his own industrial design company. He immediately started networking and eventually built a solid client base. He founded Core Body Conceptual Design and Illustration. Like most small design firms, Lugnegard illustrates his ideas of products for his clients. He also holds workshops and speaks at various conferences to promote design, as well as, his business. He uses a combination of traditional drawing on paper with all the latest digital tools including Photoshop and KeyShot software.

Recently, Lugnegard took a break from his clients, workshops and conferences to pursue a personal project. He proceeded to digitally build a low, wide and mean looking hot rod based on a Model A coupe. “I wanted a classic look with ultra modern proportions, simple geometric shapes, and clean lines,” Lugnegard explains.

Working with digital tools as an industrial designer, you can create anything. Why did you choose a hot rod?

I like car design. Cars are a beautiful object to draw. I really like motorcycles and hot rods- anything with a big engine. I love to blend character with technical beauty. I think there is something universal about hot rods that I like. The shape and forms have a purpose. Last spring, I spent five months working on the coupe. I had this idea in my head I needed to get out. It was purely personal, explorational and educational.

Do you like modern performance and sports cars?

I am bored with Ferraris and Lamborghinis. I’m more interested in seeing the mechanicals, the steering, and the suspension. I appreciate the details as an artist.

I’m assuming there aren’t many hot rods around the area in which you were raised. How did you grow to appreciate them?

I started watching Chip Foose on the television show, Over-Haulin. He was a big influence on me. I also kept an eye out for Hot Rod and Street Rodder magazines. The biggest source was the internet. That’s where I learned so much. I also learned about hot rods by building them in data. It took me a week to build the fuel tank and to get the look right. It was fun building the dropped and drilled front axle with drum brakes.   

How do you start to block in initial surfaces?

I start with photos. I have a huge reference file of hot rod images and technical drawings of many details. I start modeling piece by piece. Once I have all the pieces in place, I begin to refine, refine, refine. The Coker tires took me forever. I really like those tires and have never seen one in real life. I have never been to a hot rod show before. I’m not in Detroit or L.A. Once in awhile I see a tuned BMW or a Ferrari

Was your design process the same on the coupe as it would be on a product for a client?  

My design process is pretty much a custom blend of free artistry and classic industrial design. I follow my intuition rather than research methodology. My process revolves around my initial vision, it seldom leads me wrong and is clear enough to guide me through long journeys. With that being said, I rarely show early sketches from my projects for the simple reason that they are not as exciting and flashy as some of you may think. It is often just simple ink sketches that help me capture the initial vision.

Though you held off on client work to pursue this project, do you see this body of work attracting other clients?

As a full time freelance designer, you rarely find time for personal, self-initiated projects, but it’s vital to find challenges and exercises, large and small that allow the creative self to explore, experiment and refine its workflow and the tools being used.

It’s not a simple decision to initiate an internal project that focuses solely on development and inspiration, it gives no given output and doesn’t pay the bills. You may see it as a solid investment and a long-term advertising project. It's however incredibly liberating to put away any performance anxiety and nervousness as you often have towards a client and, for once, act client yourself. This gives you the opportunity to plan, prepare, make decisions, and execute a project with the only goal to develop, learn something new, and have a great time. This is something that many creative professionals should treat themselves to more often.

Do you have aspirations of building a hot rod, maybe your '79 coupe?

Yes. I’m going to own a hot rod. I want to build the 79 coupe one day. I can’t weld or work with sheet metal on an English wheel but I can visualize a concept.

What would you like to convey beyond the hot rod with this body of work?

In a way, similar to how artists within movies and video games work, I hope to convey a clear and strong sense of what’s to come. This vehicle is about racing, passion and appreciation for the craft. Every single element is designed to speak about just that. To tell its audience that this hot rod, street rod or concept vehicle is an expression of love for the metal surfaces, polished bolts, well tuned engine, sculpted headers and roar of attitude.

I want you to be inspired to create and take your vision one step further. Find new tools, invest in your dream and love your job. There’s no limit today.

The engine looks fantastic! Are you designing the engine by eye as well?

The design was nailed in just a few weeks, and in that time, form and design of the engine area was given a lot of the attention. Creating an exciting and logical balance between the various mechanical elements were an inspiring and technically educational exercise on many levels. The details are crucial. Creating an intricate puzzle of "machine design" that feels alive and is well composed requires both knowledge and an aesthetically trained eye for proportion and composition to give it the right character and flow. An element like the headers became a key feature with a lot of thought going into the design through quite a few sketches and mock ups.

Thanks Mikael for your time and killer imagery. Hopefully, you can get to Australia and catch a few hot rod shows sometime soon.

This article first appeared in Fuel Magazine issue 15.

ART OF DRIVE: VIET NGUYEN MOTORCYCLE SKETCHES

Interview: Geoff Baldwin. via http://fueltank.cc/blog

Our Art of Drive series interviews artists, designers and photographers to find out what inspires them.

I used to think that Instagram was just a place to see photos of food, but it’s quickly become a great resource of moto tidbits and inspiration. A few months ago Luke sent me the Instagram profile of Viet Nguyen Art and I’ve been following Viet ever since. A toy designer by trade, Viet’s personal artwork of sultry female riders is always a welcome addition to my following feed. So when it came to planning out some features for issue 5, an interview with Viet was one of the first things to make the list.

Hi Viet, Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself? 

Just another artist/designer living and working in LA. I like to spend my free time staying active, mountain biking and enjoying the outdoors. I’m really into the gasoline culture, I guess it’s all a part of growing up in Southern California.

I saw that you're a toy designer. How did you get into the toy industry?  

I went to Otis College of Art and Design and they have a Toy Design program, it’s basically Product Design. Growing up poor, my brother and I used a lot of imagination and creativity to make a lot of the things we played with, so it just felt like something I would be good at. I went through the program and interned at Mattel (Barbie, Hot Wheels), which happened to be located just a few miles from campus, and when I graduated from the program, they hired me. I ended up working there for eight years and then just recently left to work for a smaller toy company, Spin Master, out of their LA office in Culver City. I like the smaller company, as a designer you have a bit more freedom to be creative. I enjoy the work, it’s a fun industry and since a lot of toys are entertainment based, the things you work on change quite often.

When you design a toy do your sketches usually translate directly to a finished product?

There are many different processes, and every project has different requirements, but for the most part, I put together a design definition sheet that includes everything from verbal description of features to turn-around drawings with dimensions. Much of the modelling is done in Hong Kong and China these days and the more detailed you are with the description, the better the models will come back as what you had in mind. It always takes multiple rounds of back and forth with engineers here and overseas to get the final tooling model ready. Then there are other things like specifying colour chips for paint, etc. It’s actually pretty involving and this is where the Pin Up art becomes a nice break from it all.

Are there any toys out there you've designed that we might know?

I am currently working on Dreamworks’ How to Train your Dragon 2 toys. When I was at Mattel I worked on a lot of DC comics properties like Batman and Superman action figures.

So I assume your Pin Up art has no relation to the toy designing?

My Pin Up art started as a way for me to get away from daily nine to five work.  Drawing girls is completely different from action figures and monsters and the boys stuff that I have to do all day long, so it’s a nice change just to clear the mind and get refreshed again. I also find it really challenging to draw or paint females, so it keeps the skills sharp. When you draw male figures or creatures and make a mistake it kind of just adds character and people judge you more on the technical aspect of it, but make a mistake on a female face or figure and everyone will see it, I think everyone just has a natural eye for beauty and can just tell when something is off, even if we don’t know what it is. The other challenge I love with drawing the girls is how to make them sexy without overly sexualizing them. I like my girls to look like they’re tough, I like to show that these are girls who ride the bikes, not just pose on them. I think a lot of people who follow me on Instagram like my art for this reason, at least that’s what I tell myself.

You mentioned that you don't want to over sexualise women in your art. Is this something you think happens too often?

I don’t know if it’s something that is happening too often, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of that kind of Pin Up art that I like, but there has to be some cleverness or style behind it, otherwise it feels just like an easy cop out.  What I was trying to say was, it’s more like the difference between how a female artist would draw sexy vs. how a male artist would. I’d like to think that my art would fit somewhere in between, I guess it’s partly also a reflection of the type of girls I find attractive.

Do you think there's any chance one of your female riders could become immortalised as a toy or a vinyl figure one day?

It’s actually awesome that you asked this, I’ve been kicking around the idea of doing a series of biker girls and their motorcycles, just trying to find the right style for it, I am in the industry, so I am familiar with the manufacturing and production side, it is a very real possibility, maybe I could even use Kickstarter or something like that to fund it.

Motorcycles and riding gear appear in a lot of your work. Are you a rider yourself?

Yes, I am a rider. I started later than most, around the age of 28, but like anyone really, I have always loved motorcycles just really didn’t get a chance to ride one, but when I finally did, I was bit by the moto bug hard. It is so much of who I am as a person now.  In the past few years the people I’ve met, the places I’ve been and the things I’ve done have all been through my motorcycle. I have a 2006 Triumph Bonneville by the way, not great at any one thing, but the bike is perfect for everything if you know what I mean, it’s just a fun bike.

Where can our readers see/buy more of your stuff?

This is actually the part I need to get together, when I started my IG account, it was just to throw up my personal art and it was just a way to keep me drawing and painting, I never knew it would get the response it has from the motorcycle community. I don’t have a website or anything yet, but working on it. I’ve sold a few prints and original paintings just through people emailing me. I am trying to set it up so that I have a few different prints available to sell and in the mean time I will just be working on original paintings.

This article first appeared in Tank Moto issue 05.
See more of Viet's work: @vietnguyenart

Pin Up Artist Gil Elvgren

A Brief History on Gil ElvgrenThis another iconic Artist that I have always held up in a very high esteem, I have only a few Pin up artist I really admire from back i the day and this guy is number 2 in my list and wanted to share this with you lot as it just shows the diversity of what I am into as everything I like, I am sure some of you share the same interest.

A handful of American artists would lift the pinup calendar to its greatest heights.  Among those, Alberto
Vargas, George Petty, Rolf Armstrong, Zoe Mozert, Earl Moran and to the one and only Gil Elvgren.

Gil Elvgren (March 15, 1914-February 29, 1980), born Gillette Elvgren, was an American painter of pin-up girls,
advertising and illustration. Elvgren lived in various locations, and was active from the 1930s to 1970s. Today he
is best known for his pin-up paintings for Brown & Bigelow.

Elvgren was one of the most important pin-up and glamour artists of the twentieth century.  In addition, he
was a classical American illustrator.  He was a master of portraying the feminine, but he wasn’t limited to the
calendar pin-up industry. He was strongly influenced by the early “pretty girl” illustrators, such as Charles Dana
Gibson, Andrew Loomis, and Howard Chandler Christy.  Other influences included the Brandywine School
founded by Howard Pyle.

Elvgren was a commercial success.  His clients ranged from Brown & Bigelow and Coca-Cola to General Electric
and Sealy Mattress Company.  In addition, during the 1940s and 1950s he illustrated stories for a host of
magazines, such as The Saturday Evening Post and Good Housekeeping.

Although best known for his pin-ups, his work for Coca-Cola and others depicted typical Americans — ordinary
people doing everyday things.  The women Elvgren painted were never the femme fatale, the female
adventuress, or somebody’s mistress.

They are the girl next door whose charms are innocently revealed in that
fleeting instant when she is caught unaware in what might be an embarrassing situation.

I recommend reading Charles Martignette’s story on Gil Elvgren for a comprehensive look into his life.

He was among the finest artists out there with a real flair for the skin tone and making these girls come alive.

from cb750cafe