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Hello Matt, welcome to the madhouse.
Thank you for your kind words about my motorcycles. I don't know why I like motorcycle models - I am not, and have never been, a biker - but they seem to fit my modelling skills (and avoid my weaknesses). The Harley is the first model I have started from scratch and completed, but it arose out of an increasing tendency to rework existing designs to improve fit or add detail. The tipping point came with my previous bike, the Flying Merkel, which was based on a commercial kit but ended up around 70% redesigned.
For the design work, I use a very ad hoc mixture of tools. The majority of my working career was taken up with writing solids modelling software which provides that capability in several CAD systems, but I never learned to use any of those systems! As a result, I tend to write bespoke programs to do any difficult 3D calculations, then feed the results into GIMP or more recently Inkscape to do the painting and parts layout. One of the reasons for choosing a really early bike to model was that it is very largely two-dimensional, so a great deal of the "feel" of the prototype can be obtained from just a good side-on photograph.
Your Vincent certainly looks like a magnificent beast. I confess I had never heard of Vincent motorcycles until a few years ago when we were on holiday in Scotland, and the hotel car park one day filled up with lots of these machines. We spent a pleasant time in the bar chatting to the charming and friendly riders. Sadly it looks way beyond my design capability, though I would love to have a model of a machine of this vintage.
Good luck with your Titanic - I hope you will show us some of your work in time.
Best wishes,
Alan
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