what do you guys think of chip foose and his sketching and his ability to "render" his drawings? i think he is absolutely amazing at what he does

In my opinion, to me there are alot of guys in america who seem to be doing the same sort of styling/rendering which has stemmed from the US fascination with hotrods of the 30s to 60s.

He is very similar to other stylists!

I have worked with Chip on a number of projects. He thinks BFG tires fit the images he's after. Good for us. We've hand carved his designs on the OverHaulin show done in real time at SEMA for the past two years. Here's what sets him apart. His time is in such demand right now that he has every right to tell people to back off and give him some space. I talked with his wife in Vegas and asked how they handle all this and still keep a family life. Her answer and it was echoed by Chip and his Dad was. . ."This is what we do." That's a pretty cool work philosophy. to merc560sec's point, sure there are other guys who can sketch but you will find few designers with his talent who will go WAY out of his way, supress his ego and do whatever it takes to promote good design.

Actually I feel that car industry make exceptional and unfair demands of car designers in terms of time spent away from their families (I have been through this several times). In fact it seems that designers often pay the price for bad project management and have to loose holidays and spend phenomial hours working on cars/showcars or are not allowed their legal paternity leave etc. Often the hours demanded by companies are actually illegal by European laws (not sure about the states), but we allways have the threat hanging over us, that they could easily replace us, especially as so many are very eager to join the industry. some would sell their mother to get in. (I know some designers who have been threatend with this)

And among some there is this macho ' I did this many hours.' which infact is often self destructive and the quality + amount of work you truly acheive in that time drops as a result of over tiredness.

I Believe it is possible to get the job done, effeciently within a healthy number of hours per day and it is bad to perpetuate this overtly obsessed will do anything to acheive a car - at the end of the day its just a Car, we are not saving lives.