Early-ish
2013
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A New Motorcycle Design from Tim Cameron DesignThe X1224 or Mars Bike. It all started with a set of sketches that can be traced back to the original TCD NASA bike idea from 2004, with the unhinged notion of a bike that would look at home in an off-world landscape. It may well be argued that this type of sci-fi thinking was already somewhat of a mission accomplished for us here at TCD, with designs such as the V-Rex already rolling down the street. The X1224 design is a blend of sportsbike, motard and adventure bike elements, wrapped up in bodywork with plenty of cranked lines and angles and a splash of implied advanced technology through the use of hexagons and polygons in many details along with blue-anodised fittings, all in a layout which could well house something aside from a conventional petrol engine, most likely a compact diesel-electric or hydrogen-electric hybrid drivetrain. Power is transmitted to the alien terrain through a two-wheel drive, electric motor-based transmission. It
feels pretty good to get back amongst the pixels,
and we hope you enjoy this one as much as we did
coming up with it. Theres a few more in the
works, and now were back at it, well
let you know when theyre cooked. Print res
renders for this one are available, along with any
further details you would like. |
Colour
scheme still being worked on

Well finally it happened. I came face to face with the 'dream'. Attending the Australian Motorcycle Expo at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre on Feb 18th and 19th, I was able to meet with Steve Leach, owner of the only V-Rex in Oz, rebadged as the 'Beond Bike'. I got to chat with Steve, sit on his beloved machine - which he told me proudly he commutes on everyday - and later I even managed a generously offered spin through downtown Surfers Paradise complete with rolling wave of 'holy crap-WTFs- whaaatz thaaat?' type comments audible from both sides of the street. Yes, a truly great day, many thanks to Steve who by his obvious enthusiasm for the machine has made me very proud as a designer. Here's a couple of slightly excitement-blurred snaps from the big day:

We have hit the ground running with some great expansion into the fields of product design and toy design. Pages showing these works are being readied as we speak and will be put up as completed. There is also a flood of new works coming to the motorcycle portfolio and a filling out and reorganise of the whole auto/truck portfolio.
I
have also added a new page called 'sketches'
to show some of the early drafts of some of the designs.
Hopefully this gives you an idea of the very seed of an idea
that is taken all the way to complete design. Let me know if
you like it or if it is pretentious bullshit!

Man! What a year... I am planning on wrapping up a huge backlog of designs very soon. Will post a note when they are up. Also updates and additions to the 3D gallery.


Added
a new design to the motorcycle gallery in the form of the
VR-3. You can see the whole page HERE

Other
news is in the form of 'finally we can talk about it'...
back when the V-Rex first came out, an approach was made
to
Travertson Inc. to have the V-Rex appear in the second
Transformers movie as a part of the 'motocycle gang
sequence'.
Unfortunately a couple of months later, those in charge
evidently had a changed of mind. Now in perfect hindsight I
say
'Thank God' as I have tried to make it through 'TF 2' and
find it pretty much UNWATCHABLE!
Somehow
recently I found a link to the website
belonging to Steve Jung, a very talented artist responsible
for a whole bunch
of concept artwork for Transformers 2, and found this image,
reproduced here with Steve's OK. Ah to think what might
have been. Thousands? millions? of little kiddies playing
with their transforming V-Rex toy with electric zapping
whip!
Sigh. It was not to be!
Other news involves serious progress being made on the Skeletor bike. Will update the Skeletor page when I get the chance.

We
are currently engaged in a general makeover of the website.
We're adding a lot of background details, concept
sketches
and other bits and pieces from the archives. Work will be
ongoing for the next couple of months, so feel free to
stop
by week to week as new items are added.

The V-Rex received an Honourable Mention for 'Best Eccentric' in motorcycle.com's 'Best of 2009' Awards!




My focus as a designer was packaging all this technology in a fairly 'standard' looking design rather than anything as outlandish as the current crop of hybrid concept bikes. I chose the British cafe racer as a source of some lines (you can see a little Norton Commando in the ducktail) and I thought it would be fun to blend some older lines with brand new technology. There is a page for it in the gallery HERE, and you can contact me for a press release and high res print-ready images as well, via email
There are TWO V-Rexes (Rexii?) currently to be seen at the massive SEMA show in Las Vegas, one on the K&N stand and the other with the gents at Prospray.
Other V-Rex highlights include confirmation of where and when the V-Rex makes its movie debut in 2009!
On slightly disrelated other news, 'Wired' featuring my 'space fighter' design in their on-line gallery.

Siggraph! Who's that up on the screen?

Hollywood star Paul Walker looking mighty cool on a
V-Rex.

The
bike is also making an appearance in LA at the massive and
awesome Siggraph conference. Newtek, the makers of the
software I used to design and build the original 3D concept,
will have a 'real ' V-Rex on their stand for the week, as
well as a video interview with yours truly explaining the
finer points of the design process.
I have finally gotten round to rendering a short 'demo reel'
featuring some of my designs in quicktime format. You can
download it HERE.
Also there is a series of articles appearing in 3D World magazine which trace the development in diary form of the V-Rex from my original idea and sketch all the way to rolling down the streets of the U.S.
I am also working on some car designs which will be added to the gallery shortly.
There are more new designs on the way, including our first hybrid.

Vids
vids vids! Clips of the V-Rex are all over the web. It looks
GOOD in motion!
Click on these images below to see some of them.

If Angelina Jolie strolled down Main Street naked, perhaps with her hair on fire, she might come close to attracting the amount of attention the Travertson V-REX does. - Kevin Duke
I'll add links to the various other stories as they appear.

Huge media launch here in Sydney for a major design project I have been working on for about a year, in conjunction with Sydney-based research organisation, the IAG Technical Research Centre. This organisation has been looking closely into ways to make motorcycles safer as well as cheaper to repair in the event of a simple tip over, and asked me for some input, which lead to the 'Swann Insurance Motorcycle of the Future' design coming about.
The media launch was kicked off by our very own Aussie motorcycle racing star Casey Stoner, currently leading the pack in the MotoGP series, who unveiled large images of the design, which features a virtual 'wish list' of items designed to make motorcycles both safer and cheaper to insure.
A HUGE story has just appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald sparked by this launch, featuring nice big images of the design. The story is up online currently here




In early August there is going to be a major media launch involving a motorcycle design I have penned in conjunction with the IAG Research Laboratory here in Sydney. This motorcycle is being used to highlight some deficiencies in current motorcycle design as regards ease of damageability and cost of repair. More details will be added as the launch grows closer.
Also,
starting to become a topic is something I have been working
on in liaison with staff from the IAG Research Laboratory
here in Sydney, Australia. Serious in-depth research is
currently underway into ways that motorcycle design can be
improved as regards the expense of damage ocurring after a
simple 'drop'.
With
horror stories of bikes being 'written off' by insurance
companies after simply rolling off the sidestand, there's
plenty to be done. I believe this problem can be
successfully tackled at the design stage without affecting
the 'looks' of the bike very much, if at all. It would be no
fun if your bike looked like a battleship just so that you
could insure it!
I will be setting up an entire page on this website to go
into this subject much more in-depth. For now , here is
a
link to IAG's website
on the topic, complete with QuickTime movies.
Oh and I started building Skeletor, my original thumper design from a few years ago. See here for more info.

Some stories are starting to appear about the bike. This week Ozbike magazine in Australia features the bike on the cover and in an 8 page centrefold pictorial. A french magazine called "maximoto' has also done a rather nice feature as well.
Bit of a roundup from Daytona. First off the bike won its class at the Daytona Beach Boardwalk Bike Show and Christian has a HUGE trophy for the mantlepiece! The bike was also entered in the world famous 'Rat's Hole Bike Show' somewhat reluctantly as Christian explained that the V-Rex is NOT a one-off custom bike, it's a PRODUCTION bike, but, according to Christian, they wouldn't take 'no' for an answer, and so for possibly the first time in history, a production bike placed in the TOP TEN out of 150 entries at this prestigeous show!
