I've done it both ways.

When I designed the boat manually i did it using a model between drawing the design and laying out the panels. I drew my profile view on a peice of plywood, added a third dimension by cutting a peice of card stock to the plan view of the shear line and the chine line and gluing these to the shear and chine lines on my profile. I then layed the panels on to that. Cutting them to fit. you could use station molds instead, perhaps easier. measure and scale form the model

When doing Cad designed boats, i check them with a model and adjust if necessary.

Mat board works great if the bends and twists are mild (large scale is better)