So now that the site's live, and shit's off to the races, and I'm allowed to show a little bit of the awesome project I've been working my ass off to crush, these last few months, lemme share a little bit more about the electric wing-in-ground-effect craft now known as a seaglider.

This has been an absolute dream project for me, the type of thing I've been waiting years to be a part of. If you squint at it, you can probably see hints of stuff I was trying to do almost 20 years ago, with my thesis model at CCS:

Like the Porsche 977 Bergsteiger.

Stuff like composite, stressed-skin over a frame, electric propolusion, great visibility, access, aero everything, and functionality. Oh, and racing proto looks:

I don't have to explain ekranoplans here, y'all know what I'm talking about. But now that batteries and motors are starting to enable realistic packages, the time to take advantage of ground-effect flight looks to be here. Plus hyrdofoils like an AC75.

So, what the hell does this process look like? It starts with a bunch of meetings with aero engineers. They handed me their initial CAD swag, which looked appropriate for Rip Riley

I started with design research and sketching.

First trying to stick close to the engineering package, then, after receiving permission to push it more, about 300 more sketches.

Until finally hitting the key sketch, that combined all the meetings with aero and hydro engineers, and my own pushing on design attributes, we get to the key sketch, the one that gets buyoff. The right one.

Then comes CAD. In this case, it was all Solidworks, because that's what I pay for. It's not the right tool for the job, but like Rumsfeld said, you go to war with the army you have.

Along the way, you do a ton more meetings, tweak as much as possible as fast as possible, throw a bunch of shit out, lose a couple motors, and work until 4AM, get up at 7, and keep going. Rinse, repeat.

Once that's right enough, it's on to pretty renderings. When you've been working on making products look real in a studio environment for like 15 years, it's a REAL BIG switch to a 12-person craft in a real environment. FUCK! Lots of hair-tearing until there's ANYTHING you'd be ok with showing. And do it in the middle of the Texas Snowstorm Massacre.

Keep working at it...

Until you get to the point that you can show something that's starting to look real enough. Pull in all your photo experience, material experience, and flying experience, and just try really hard to make it look right.

And then, when you have a few minutes while making Sunday morning breakfast with your daughter, you try really quickly to make a Miami Blue GT3 paintjob just for funsies

Like I said, this project is kinda the culmination of everything I've wanted to do since I was a kid: make clean-powered things, things that fly, forward-swept wings, wings that move, biomimicry, and just good design. There's enough bad design out there, and I don't wanna be part of the problem. This is, finally, just the start.

Thanks for listening/reading, Oppo. I wish Davey G Johnson were here to see this. Y'all are just the best people. You're awesome.

So I'm very suddenly involved, to the point of directing, the design effort for a thing that may or may not fly.

It's too much real work to do in the time we've got, but it's the sort of project and thing I've been wanting to do/be a part of my whole life, so I'm throwing my effort at it.

No idea whether it'll come to anything, but I'm doing my damndest to make it what it needs to be in order to succeed. In the meantime, here's some scribbles from the holidays, farting around with kids and talking about design and drawing.
(SAAB)

(Honda)

(Alfa)

(Someone on Oppo)

And here's an old sketch or three, for reminders:

Editing to add a couple of SAABMiatas that I sketched up one day, when I asked Oppo for sketch suggestions and I did what I could:

Aaaaanyway, I'm gonna be overwhelmed for a while, but I hope that 2 months from now I'm able to show a little bit of a thing I'm now building and directing, and hopefully soon there will be parts in hand. It's weird to share stuff that isn't like crisis-of-the-moment, or whatever, but I've been with y'all since before the Kinja switch, and maybe I can dig up some of those old things at some point, too. Points are: Thank you, Oppo. All of you.

I don't really have anything of import to say. Just gonna throw out a couple old-Oppo-related sketches and say, once again, that I am thankful for all of you.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for making this place. Thank you for being you.

/sappiness

I'll be able to do a longer writeup on this project on Monday, but since the site went live yesterday, I'm finally allowed to show y'all one of the things I've been working on recently!

Working on this has been like, the project I've been waiting my whole life to do-- electric ekranoplan!

I've been busting my ass for the last couple months, as the sole ID-- from sketch to CAD to renderings, and now I'm allowed to show it, so-- there it is.
This is the 10-passenger version, which has had a lot more put into it than the 50-passenger, but I'll be working on that one, too.
Here's the website, which also features a little animation done by a small team based in Houston, and more of my renderings.

@grindintosecond He made it over for about a day, before starting some shitstorm.

Building on @Skyfire77's earlier post, I've been sitting on this guy's stuff for a few weeks while I've been over my head with work, but I'm gonna throw it out and say that this guy fucking gets it so hard.

Cars. Planes. Paint. Lettering. Sketching. Character. Love. All of it.

His Tumblr and Twitter

Too much awesome to do justice at the moment, but, hey, he has a FREE COLORING BOOK OF GROUP B CARS available here.

Disclaimer: I don't know him. Never met. Have been in love with his sketches, life, and everything for a couple weeks, and I need to close some browser tabs. But it's rare that I'd like wholeheartedly endorse anything, but I'm endorsing everything he's done and is doing.

@carsoffortlangley Merchio!

Welp. Hope that works

Here's a sketch from this afternoon.

Resurrecting the #sketch tag. Does that work?

Here's my morning warmup sketch, a Honda-ish Kei car.

@rusty-vandura One of my quarantine skills, that I just took up out of frustration, was sharpening.
It's worked out pretty well, and is an extremely Zen activity. And you get to enjoy the benefits of your work.

And because it's a PITA to just do one or two of your own knives, you can offer neighbors to bring theirs over. Of course, that ended up being 22 knives, including a cleaver and a super-chrome Shun, but eventually I got around to mine, too. But hey, it's a really good skill. Can't recommend it enough.


@streetsofperth Thank you. I've sort of been pouring what's left of my heart out, the past few days, and I'm not gonna bullshit: Oppo, all of you, are always in my head. In a good way. Like, I have a little time to sketch some random shit for practice? Ask Oppo. Failed motherboard on my desktop, and I'm putting a new one together? Ask Oppo. I'm working on stuff and need to share my joy of early 90s hip hop or Daft Punk? Oppo. Just did this thing, and want some honest and educated feedback? Most of what I do, I do with "what would Oppo do" in mind.

We're spread out all over the world, which is what makes it so awesome. The biggest thing is that it's always been the most supportive, fun, and shared experience and enthusiasm from everyone. And actually caring.

And sketches and stuff... man. I want to have the time to just do that again. My favorite sketch jams for fun were the ones Opponauts suggest. To have been able to share the ekranoplan with y'all was like, a dream.

We do well for each other, around here. I've said many times over the years how much I appreciate all of you. You help make people's lives better, WE help make people's lives better. Because that's what we do.

@tripper It was turrible.

@drvantraveler @Mazda616 One more reason Oppo is the best people. You're not alone here, whether it's car nerdery, existential Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side, music, bikes (motored or not), mechanical problem-solving, and, in this case, knowing that you're not alone when your head's in that dark, howling void, and just need a not-therapist or -doctor to sound off with.

If there's any major takeaway from the last year, it's that we're all in this together. And around here, we adhere strictly to Rule #1, and we continue to be excellent to each other. Because otherwise, what's the fucking point? The way @jminer and the rest of the @Curators crew pulled this together seemingly overnight, and how it's grown and become its own thing is nothing short of amazing. And all of us who've been around forever want to keep all of us on board for as long as possible.

@pip-bip

It's the product of a weird Lister Storm, Citicar, and Reliant Robin threeway.

@flatisflat Yep, those all qualify as GIB.

Carry on.

@hugz Had one as a loaner, years ago, while my MR2 was in the shop.
It's a terrible, terrible car. Irredeemable.

@vincentmalamute Help is being sought. And I guess that it doesn't hurt that I have family who are now on watch, too. Which, that sucks. It's embarrassing. But I am doing my best to hang around.

@ttyymmnn You know where to find me.

@way2blu this is relevant to my interests.