So why is painting a picture of a car so hard compared to say a flower? Well, the main thing here with cars is if you don’t carry out every line in perfect proportion, if you just happen to make one little mistake then it can completely ruin the whole painting. The reason behind this is our brains are very good at remembering shapes and details around it. While a pink tulip can have different shades, come in different sizes, have different leaves etc, a car model remains the same, so when faced with a difference our brain will tend to spot it right away.
The idea is when you decide to start your next car painting, try to take your time and don’t rush the early stages, i am referring here to the part where you try to get all of the proportions right before starting to shade or paint your creation. Don’t let it get you down if you are not extremely talented with shading techniques or not the even the best with colors when you draw cars. The fact of the matter is, if you don’t manage to get the proportions right at the beginning the end result is usually a disaster. So you need to understand before going any further how important it is to get the proportions right. Which leaves us with the question of How do you do it? How do I do it?
Your first step is to start out with a clean sheet of paper, most preferably a pretty big one. Then go and find a picture of a car that inspires you to draw, a good picture of a car. This picture will now be used as a reference for your car painting or drawing.
Start of by drawing some soft lines on the paper, you want to try and get the general box proportion right. By box proportion I am referring to the most basic lines of the drawing such as the roof and bottom of the car. After having accomplished that, then start by adding on to your picture the front or rear of the car. This will probably be determined by how the car is positioned on your reference picture.
When you feel like you have done this and feel as if you have really nailed those lines well, then the next step will be to move on and start adding the small details to your picture such as the door handel’s, windows and the headlights etc. The next tip here is to not start doing the wheels to early because those are usually the hardest part. When you are happy with your overall lines of your car painting/picture then do the wheels. Then you need to take a well deserved break. Yes you heard right, make a cuppa take a time out. Why you might be asking? Well, this is an important step of the creation process as when you come back in an hour or so you will probably start to notice little things that need to be corrected which you didn’t happen to notice while you were drawing the car. So now add the small details and remember don’t start to shade and paint the car until you feel very satisfied with the cars shape and details. When you fell like you are happy with your design, then I would suggest you start to shade it carefully. Now how you shade it correctly is whole other topic topic, which I will be covering on my next article.