Attention colored pencil artists!

Hello,

I have had an offer now for awhile to get a book published if I made one on coloring. Ive have yet to find a GOOD book on coloring cars using colored pencil so I have decidied to do mine on this subject, I will also have in there a full section on sketching and perspective techniques of actually drawing the thing first before coloring of coarse, hopefull it should be pretty good:p

But I was wondering if any of you that use colored pencil have anything you would like to see in a how-to book or have any techniqes of your own to share with,

thanks for your time :)

heres a rough idea for the cover i made up real quick, i wanna keep it simple

Any ideas for a title, this one seems kinda not right to me??

http://www.thegaffney.com/coverprev.jpg

shading tires (tread detail) would be great, wheels and headlights are the heardest to figure out when using colored pencils in my opinion

I hope Alex and gbritnell see this and add some comments, they also have amazing talents
with using pencils.

I don't have anything to offer as I just rough sketch my toons in pencil, then
take it all to a digital program.
And now that I got a new tablet, I've started skipping even the pencil work and
doing the roughs on the Wacom.

Hi Mike, As with any how to book it needs to be broken up into many sections. You would start of with the types of materials to use, giving the reader different options for pencils and supports. Next would come the basic layout and sketching with an emphasis on perspective as it applies to automobliles. I think in rendering cars on of the most important aspects is the proper way to apply reflections. You could explain how an object is reflected off of a curved surface, whether painted or chromed. Without reflections a car rendering is just a flat colored object so that is why I feel this area needs the most explanation. You could then get into special areas like interiors or engine compartments. The basics of applying colored pencils to paper are the same no matter what you are portraying, landscapes, still lifes, portraits or automobiles. By this I mean the use of layering to achieve color depth. Most good colored pencil drawings have many layers on them. I have read where some artists use up to 7 or 8 layers. I have never used that many on a car rendering but I guess it's possible. From what I understand creating a book is quite an undertaking so I wish you the best in this endeavor.
gbritnell

shading tires (tread detail) would be great, wheels and headlights are the heardest to figure out when using colored pencils in my opinion

+1

I have to say that i really cant stand rendering headlights but i guess there are so many different types (projector etc.) that it would be hard to cover all of them?

Hi Mike, As with any how to book it needs to be broken up into many sections. You would start of with the types of materials to use, giving the reader different options for pencils and supports. Next would come the basic layout and sketching with an emphasis on perspective as it applies to automobliles. I think in rendering cars on of the most important aspects is the proper way to apply reflections. You could explain how an object is reflected off of a curved surface, whether painted or chromed. Without reflections a car rendering is just a flat colored object so that is why I feel this area needs the most explanation. You could then get into special areas like interiors or engine compartments. The basics of applying colored pencils to paper are the same no matter what you are portraying, landscapes, still lifes, portraits or automobiles. By this I mean the use of layering to achieve color depth. Most good colored pencil drawings have many layers on them. I have read where some artists use up to 7 or 8 layers. I have never used that many on a car rendering but I guess it's possible. From what I understand creating a book is quite an undertaking so I wish you the best in this endeavor.
gbritnell

Sweet yeah a got about the first half of what you susgested already planed, and part of it done actually, but yeah, i can see how its going to take along time, should be worth it though,

I also agre that most people that do colored pencil are pretty good at the shading, its just the depth and most the time, the contrast that they need improving on, the bike in the above picture i did is some of those orange and yellow hues, i layered on like 4 full thick diferent colors to get that, I dont know about 7 though lol, maybe ill see a need for it one day.

thanks for the sugestions :)

+1

I have to say that i really cant stand rendering headlights but i guess there are so many different types (projector etc.) that it would be hard to cover all of them?

not really, they would all just follow the same basic priciple of shading and just imagining where the light would be hitting the certian parts, i will definantly consider doing more then one example though, i want my book to be pretty comprehensive and informational

hey there,

are you going to make a book about drawing car's with reference pic's or just out of the head.. when you dont use reference pics, how do you know where the reflections would come and how?..thats what i should want to learn..

Hey man, first I'd like to say congrats and good luck on the book offer! Some things you might want to emphasize are layering and burnishing, since reflective/painted surfaces should be rendered smoothly. Attention to small details and keeping your pencils sharp is also important. Show your drawing process step by step, and be as specific as possible when explaining what you did in each stage (colors, techniques, etc). I think gbritnell covered everything else. :)

Alex

Good luck, that bike looks pretty sick

ill buy it! there isnt any good books out there when it comes to drawing cars :)

This thread got my attention because It would be great to have a book that shares some of the secrets of this trade, I used to be interested in drawing but never really found any thing that helped me better my skills, so I never fulfilled my ambition in designing cars, instead I am now a programmer...how boring, money is good, the feeling for the time/effort on the job never really matches that of designing some thing new from scratch, being the first to convert thought/idea into a picture or even a model! So yes even if this is too late for me, it would be great...