First actual attempt at illustrator

Contour Enthusiasts Group Archives

I'm still trying to figure this program out on my own so don't be too harsh in your critisism. I know I missed a few things and there are some rough bits but after spending the last four hours on this I think I'm making some good headway.

I started with this image of my car for lighting reference

I drew all the lines in illustrator with the pencil tool, then smoothed them out when I had them where I wanted them. I changed the perspective to a dead on side view. I've done the car from this angle so many times I can draw it from memory now.

I did most of the filling with gradients, then jumped to Imageready where I put on the finishing touches like using the film grain filter to simulate metallic in the paint, and basically cleaning up any inconsistencies with the airbrush.

I'm happy with my end result, which was a 4096x3072 TIFF file. I printed a 4'x3' poster for the living room wall beside my Micra's hood.

I think that with some practice I can cut my time to get an image done in half. I think I am much faster with photoshop doing images like these but they don't blow up as cleanly as this did.

That looks incredible. I wish I had the skills, I would do that for my Mazdaspeed Miata and hang it in the garage!!!

ive always wanted to do that

<3 vector art

good job!

~Andrew

Please tell me you did that using a Wacom...right? I can't even imagine gettin it that good with a mouse.

that looks fantastic man, great job!

Originally posted by Sl33stak:
Please tell me you did that using a Wacom...right? I can't even imagine gettin it that good with a mouse.

I can draw better with a mouse than I can with a pencil right now.

Have you ever thought about art as a career? Your portfolio is evidence of many years' worth of a job well done, and you clearly enjoy doing it.

Did you give yourself a set of rear discs there

Amazing

. Where did you get that program?

Aaron

Originally posted by hotdimmes:
Did you give yourself a set of rear discs there

My Focus has SVT Focus front and rear knuckles ready to go on, so the image is pretty accurate

First of all...SICK car

and the illustration looks awesome man

nice work

-Ben

Originally posted by Honkeytonk Monkey:

Originally posted by Sl33stak:
Please tell me you did that using a Wacom...right? I can't even imagine gettin it that good with a mouse.

I can draw better with a mouse than I can with a pencil right now.

i was going to ask if you used a pen/pad thing...but i guess not. Even more amazing then that you can do that with a mouse.

WTF don't you have a job as a graphic designer for!?

wtf, be nice to your carpet, man!
geez!

btw, you have mad skeelz
thanks for posting up the pics

Luke, you are the bee's knees.

wow, I've used Illustrator many times and I still can't do that

yeah one of the advantages of a vector based program, Photoshop would never put out such a large image cleanly.

Needs more 18" OZ's.

Do you realise how long those wheels would take to render?

Also, they are not OZs

You'll be happy to know I'm selling the black wheels now, I was offered $150 more than I paid for them two years ago

wow. after seeing this the first time it inspired me to attempt a line drawing of my car... well, after probably 6 hours of work i gave up. I cant seem to get the wheels right, not to mention i have no clue how to even begin to do the coloring/shading. your work is awesome and i can just say that it must be a ton of work. although, i was using photoshop and not illustrator

Originally posted by Guitarman19853:
not to mention i have no clue how to even begin to do the coloring/shading.

with illustrator you just draw the shape of the shade and you can fill it in or add a stroke.

Great work! I have myself a legit copy of Illustrator, but I'm too busy 3d modelling or website designing to touch it yet.

Made a few changes and voila, my old car

Originally posted by Honkeytonk Monkey:

You'll be happy to know I'm selling the black wheels now, I was offered $150 more than I paid for them two years ago

Originally posted by Pre98:
Great work! I have myself a legit copy of Illustrator, but I'm too busy 3d modelling or website designing to touch it yet.

I used to model cars a few years back. Just a hobby though, nothing you can really do with it unless you wanna get into Pixar

What do you do?

Are those paths vector (in outlines) then?
I work for a sign company and use Illustrator often.
There are programs called "Pro-Vehicle Outlines" that allready have vector versions of most cars.

Unfortunetly Mirage/Colts aren't on the CD and i've been working hard trying to get the rear window shape so I can fabricate my own lexan glass windows using sign supplies.

I have Illustrator at home and maybe this will be the way I could do it to make a rough draft design.