WIP: Custom Designed Hot Rod, need crits

[mike@af]

Heres my WIP. Needs a lot of work still, and those damn ellipses are pissing me off like no regard. Chad, I need your help with them, I cant seem to get them to match the angle of the car.

Oh, and this is a design of a hot rod I designed, and one that will be built. Currently I am building it 1/6 Scale, then after college I will build it full scale. See my signature for the 1/6 build.

Back to the drawing. After I get all the outlines right I will go on to color the larger "front" pic. I have no idea where to start with coloring though. I have been making copies of the drawing to practice on with colored pencils, but it still sucks. I would love to use marker, but I have no idea what markers to buy, and Im currently working on a big investment for the 1/6 project. Normally I'd go out and spend $80 on markers, but right now Im sorta precocious with my money.

Heres the shit drawing, go easy on it. I know its not good (and its still fairly rough to get the design down), but I bruise easily.

[SeCrEtMoDdEr]

proportions are off. and elipses are off too...

like, the back view...the front of the car is at a different angle as the back...

hopefully chad will help you out more on this stuff...

looks cool though...looks like most if not all the hotrods i see but it's good.

[bonzelite]

mike, they're good so far. you are on a good course. finally i see stuff from you.

keep the course. don't worry about the wheels. focus on the bodys for now. tackle the wheels last. rather, have in mind a wheel style that is fitting, but concern yourself with the body and reflections and grillework, etc. let's do one thing at a time.

i will not hammer you. i can print out your drawings on this thread and throw the wheels on for you when you are at a more developed point on these. you will learn from what i do when i post your drawings back for you. we will take you to another level with these, and you will retain the knowledge for following drawings. do you see that?

[mike@af]

Ok, so focus on the body?

The back view, I dont know what the hell was going on there. I dont think it looks right at all, for me, back views are very difficult. I already have noticed the ellipses are completely off.

Oh Dommy, a lot of hot rods of that era do look the same in that sense of styleing.

[bonzelite]

mike, get a rod magazine and a model. preferably a die-cast model. go to a car show. do anything to look at the reflections of the fenders and body and glass. forget the wheels for right now. you will do them, but attack things one at a time.

i say this because you can spend as much time doing only the wheels as the entire car.

i'm going to print out your drawings and show you some things.

[stuffbyalex]

Hi mike,

nice sketch, looks really clean. I like the design too.

As for crit: nothing really, except what was mentioned already.

Speaking of hot rods, I'm working on one right now. It should be done and posted in a couple days.

Alex

[bonzelite]

mike, first lesson for you: you must understand that all objects must exist on the same planes of projection. do you see how i projected with pink lines your wheels to an unseen horizon? and do you see how i projected points to the "true" horizon for the entire car that you established for the body? you need to have the pink lines and the body's lines project to the same horizon. do not mix planes of existence.

this is the first thing. and it is largely why you cannot get wheels to look correct. if you see this now, right here, then you will never get it wrong again.

and you must learn to create horizon projection lines in your head without actually projecting lines all the way to a distant horizon line.

[bonzelite]

start by drawing all elipses as three-dimensional boxes. draw the boxes projected to the horizon that you establish. in fact, draw the car as a box, too. nevermind the actual shape of it for now. you must carve the shape away from all of the simple boxes that you are going to create.

in this case, right here, you have established a hi-angle vantage point to an unseen, distant, horizon. you must, then, make, as you did the body, the dimensional boxes that the wheels will be drawn in.

if you do not do this, you will not be able to do it intuitively later. it is clear to me that you need this lesson before you continue.

the most difficult part of any drawing is the foundation lines. you cannot shortcut to rendering.

[mike@af]

Wow Chad, too much stuff to quote, but I just learned more now than the past year in school. I really appreciate you constructive crit and your lessons.

What I am thinking to do, so I do not completely fuck up the drawing is to get out some tracing paper and just start sketching wheels on there until I get the proper ellipses, same as for the horizon lines. (Man drawing a car without any reference is a pain in the ass.)

[bonzelite]

you learned more from me because schools are not set up to teach people on an individual level. the course is either too fast, not enough, too slow, too redundant. or the teaching method does not speak to your individual way of learning. you must learn how to learn, too. and this is not taught.

i can teach you more in one week than you can learn in ten years in school. we have barely begun talking about anything so far.

you need to construct boxes, mike. not just seek and destroy elipses. look at my construction lines and how they project to a horizon.

and you're not quite listening. you need to work on the body before the wheels. your perspective on the body(s) is off. i corrected it in my lesson. your entire front glass/roof was in the incorrect plane of projection to the front 'hood box' area, and to the "rear box' area in the top car. you did not "draw through" objects with construction lines in a perspective scenario. i can tell because if you did you would not have conflicting planes of perspective in the same car.

you are anxious to shortcut to things and this will only leave you compromised during rendering. you will end up rendering an incorrect car.

[bonzelite]

in another way of speaking, your setup of the perspective must have all construction lines in *agreement* as they project, as rays, to a SINGLE point on a distant spot on the horizon. you are not doing this.

[mike@af]

Ahhh, ok, now I understand. I have a model that is has similar parts to this design, I will try to use that as some what of a reference for the grill, as well as use the construction lines.

I'll work on the body, and get back to y'all.

[bonzelite]

do you know what i mean by "drawing through" objects?

it seems that you are not sketching. it looks like you are going right into the finished lines without constructing anything from a sketch. this is why areas of the same car do not agree.

post some sketches. not finished looking clean line drawings. let us see some sloppy work from you. this will reveal everything. sketches are like forensic evidence of drawings.

the whole photorealistic rendering to post on the forums to impress everyone is not interesting if the basic foundations of sketching are not present. ie, there is evidence of sketching in finished renderings.

[mike@af]

Originally Posted by bonzelite

do you know what i mean by "drawing through" objects?

it seems that you are not sketching. it looks like you are going right into the finished lines without constructing anything from a sketch. this is why areas of the same car do not agree.

post some sketches. not finished looking clean line drawings. let us see some sloppy work from you. this will reveal everything. sketches are like forensic evidence of drawings.

the whole photorealistic rendering to post on the forums to impress everyone is not interesting if the basic foundations of sketching are not present. ie, there is evidence of sketching in finished renderings.

I had first made some rough ink sketches, then I just transferred them from the smaller size, on to bigger paper. I'll post them later, as for now, this drawing is packed away for the move. So I guess I will go back to rough sketches.

[bonzelite]

good luck on the move. i hope it is for the better. moving can be a pain in the a$$.