Hoopla digital. - How to draw cars like a pro

2nd Edition

THOM TAYLOR
WITH LISA HALLETT

M ore than 10 years after doing the first version of this book, and on the heels of How To Draw Choppers Like a Pro, Motorbooks talked me into doing a new version of the original How To Draw Cars Like a Pro, which you are now holding in your sweaty hands. I never thought Id do this again, but in reviewing the first version I knew that all of my peers and I had advanced our art substantially since 1994, so I wanted to be able to show you what they and I have been up to these last 10-plus years applying to the test what we know about drawing cars.

The best thing about doing these books is visiting with all of the artists and/or designers I know personally who again have contributed to this book. Its great that, other than Mark Balfe, whom I have lost track of, every contributor to the first Cars book was so kind in coming back for a second shot. The only new face is Scott Robertson, who, besides being an exceptional designer and artist, happens to be the author of How To Draw Cars The Hot Wheels Way, another Motorbooks title. Scotts book can be considered a companion to this one, and is a great book for more details and techniques about computer art as it relates to cars.

So to all of youthanks again for your great friendship and art.

Thanks also to my editor on both this and my How To Draw Choppers, Dennis Pernu. Poor Dennis has to put up with a lot of my rants and raves, and does a good job at it! Also thanks to Zack Miller and Tim Parker at Motorbooks. And thanks to my friend Tony Thacker who was the one to originally convince Motorbooks that a how-to about drawing cars might sell a few books.

Professions related to drawing and designing cars are in abundance, and companies that require this type of work are always looking for new talent. Besides employment from a single employer, there are many opportunities out there in the freelance worldin fact, I would say that most of the contributors to this book employ themselves either as freelance designers or illustrators, or own their own design studios. Real talent in the workplace is sparse, so if you really want to do this for a living and are willing to devote a lot of time and effort, there is a job waiting for you somewhere at this moment.

Sorry to say but you still see a lot of bad art out there, especially because cars have so many technical aspects to them such as ellipses, accurate perspective, and so on. This should encourage you to learn the techniques necessary to do great art because its obvious when cars are drawn accurately, even in cartoon form, so it should be easy to bump off some of the lesser artists once better work comes alongyour work for instance!

I ended the acknowledgements for the first How To Draw Cars by thanking my parents, Charles and Ann Taylor, not only to thank them but to convey to you parents that supporting and encouraging your budding artists as my parents did is important to help foster better self esteem, and to sustain the interest and enthusiasm for this type of pursuit. There are a lot of worse things out there than drawing cars occasionally in the margins of history lecture notes.

Finally, thanks again to my wife, Lisa, and children James and Chloe, who put up with those last two weeks of my angst before book deadline!

Now, lets draw some cars!

A prominent Los Angeles surgeon I know once told me that the less the medical profession knows about something, the more they write about it. They could have filled a large room with books on polio before Jonas Salk discovered a cure; now, polio rates a paragraph in medical textbooks. I wonder if the opposite applies to drawing cars. I see poorly drawn cars in magazines, books, and ads all the time. Maybe I notice it more because Im such a car nut and I do it for a living.

Looking through art libraries and bookstores, I see lots of information on architectural design and rendering, graphics, even fashion and computer illustration. Drawing cars is a little bit like all of these and more, but nothing exists to explain this fun and exciting activity. Maybe there is so little about illustrating cars because theyre so dynamic. The plethora of car styles, and the shapes and sculpturing within those styles, can be intimidating. Add to this color, environment, direction of light, and surface finishes, and illustrating an automobile becomes complex.

Back when I was taking art classes in high school and college,,information on drawing cars was like sex: highly desired but impossible to get. I think art teachers looked upon it as a skill much like refinishing furniture or laying bricks, as opposed to an artistic endeavor. But to be honest, I think at least part of this was due to their inability to do it themselves. As a result, I was left to learn the intricacies of car illustration through my own observations, devices, and, ultimately, frustrations.

Before you is my earnest attempt to make this dirty little secret more attainable. A lot of information needs coverage in just under 150 pages, so I left a few things out, including painting or airbrush illustration. I felt the focus should be on drawing and the simpler techniques of rendering rather than these more rigorous methods. Besides, numerous books and magazines cover the principles of airbrush art and the painting that can be applied to cars once you know the information provided here.

One other thing not covered in this book: Your mistakes become your successes, because they teach you what not to do, which helps lead you down the correct path. My father told me early on that the mark of a great artist was one who could make a mistake look like it was meant to be there. I dont know what an accountant was doing advising his son on art, but he was right. Even if you dont make good out of a bad line, mark, or sketch, you most likely wont make that mistake again.

Drawing cars should be fun, but as with anything thats rewarding, it takes dedication. What activity worth doing doesnt? With the shortcuts provided here and the desire to do it, you can pick up the basics quickly. Hopefully, this will give you the impetus to continue. Practice and observation are the keys.

For those who pick up the basics offered in this book, there are chapters on schools and computer illustration. In the last decade, the computer has taken over almost every aspect of illustration to the extent that I have expanded this chapter. Most of the contributing artists featured have switched over to computers, some doing their drawings without ever touching pen to paper. The problem is that with so much new software, versions of software, and tools within that software, its impossible to give you a step-by-step guide. So instead Ive included lots of examples that show some of the ways you can create art on the computer. As varied as these styles are, there are still a zillion other techniques waiting to be wrung from the gray matter of many an artist.

My drawing abilities were more learned than endowed, which leads me to believe that anyone can learn to draw as well as the artists featured in this book.

CHAPTER ONE