Mister Coaster

I've been working on this for quite some time. It's definately going into my portfolio. I still want to do something with the background, but have not yet decided exactly what.

And yes, it was done entirely in Adobe Illustrator, photo reference.

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bernadette

that looks great, mr.coaster!

it really does deserve more background than a gradient.
please, post again when you;ve sorted out a suitable bg.

i can envision some simple vector not overly developed tree lined road. perhaps in a grey scale or one color?

(i gotta get my butt busy & learn to use illy for more than type setting.)

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dobster

Amazing Mister Coaster! For the background, how about you take the profile of this car and place it as a silhouette in a repeat pattern in subtle tones. I'll throw something down for an idea.

or

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FngKestrel

Nice!

It looks like it wants to be on a boardwalk.

Mister Coaster

I'm working on the background now. It's going to be the Chrysler logo and some other graphic design elements, all set to look like the car is in a showroom. I'll post it when I'm finished. I want to make it not only an illustration, but add some design elements as well, since that's what I need my portfolio to be.

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kramus

I was picturing a stylized 50's street scene from Florida - peach/orange sky, a couple of palm trees, some board signs and neon ... all just sketched in.

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ngdawg

I'm amazed..that is gorgeous!!! i can't even get a circle right in Illustrator

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anti fishstick

that's really nice. how long did it take?

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Mister Coaster

ngdawg: Hold down the Shift key when making a circle.

If that sounded like a smart-ass comment, I didn't mean it to be. I'm happy to answer Illustrator questions, as I'd like to think I have a pretty good grasp of the program.

fishstick: Since I wasn't "on the clock," I didn't really pay attentention to the total time. I would guess about 10 hours or so.

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ngdawg

I knew about the shift key...it's everything else, the pen tool, especially.
Also, how do you save the work so you can jpg it?

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Mister Coaster

ngdawg: Ah yes, the pen tool. Everyone's favorite thing. Either post here or PM me an e-mail address and I'll send you a small pen tool tutorial that I wrote for my job. It's a good start, then it's just practice, practice and mo' practice. I'll send the tutorial to whoever wants it. It's done in Illustrator 9.0.

To make a JPG... there are actually several ways. (I use a PC, so some of these directions will be PC specific)

1. If you just want a basic JPG of your drawing, you can take a screen shot by hitting Ctrl + Print Screen. First make sure the page tiling, artboard, guides & grid ect are not viewable. Open Photoshop (or other photo manipulation prog) and paste (Ctrl +V) the screenshot, crop in on your artwork, flatten image, and save as a JPG. This is how I did the one I posted in this topic.

2. Simply open your Illustrator file in Photoshop. When opening it, you will get a dialogue box that askes about size and resolution. Choose the options you want, and Photoshop will rasterize it for you. Then save as a JPG.

3. In Illustrator, go to File >> Export. You will choose a name and place to save it, and a format (in this case JPG) then a new box will appear with the resolution options for the JPG. This one you'll have to set high or else it will really chunk down the quality.

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superredhead

holy crap, that looks great! keep up the awesome work.

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dobster

I find the trick with pen tool is to draw as few points as possible (click while in pen mode, don't hold down and drag until your comfrotable with how it works.) then use the convert anchor point tool in the pen section and click on each point individually. You'll be able to make curves to your own requirements.

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Mister Coaster

OK, here it is in finished form. Now on to the next project!

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deportes

exellent work, amazing talent. thanks for sharing

bermuDa

I love the Illustrator work, but the final product feels rushed. If this is going into your portfolio, I would recommend redoing the composition. While I like the idea of stating the car's name and displaying the logo; their size and placement cramp the real work that's on show here--the car.

For the text: It's far too big and busy. The font itself may fit the mood, but it's not really necessary to have such a complicated gradient with a competing gradient stroke. If you wish to keep the stroke, consider making it solid or some variation instead of a horizontal multi-banded gradient. Also, I hope that you are using the proper method of stroking text (on the outside, behind the text), instead of unnecessarily invading both the positive and negative space of the font.

The numbers need to be more carefully kerned; partially because of the outline and partially because of the numbers themselves, the 1 and 9 are making out and leaving the 4 and 8 holding hands at a distance. Whether the stroke stays or goes, the numbers need to be kerned. Also, they seem to be set on a higher baseline than "Town." If they were aligned with the top of the T, it's distracting for two reasons.

1) the word "Town" has one capital letter followed by several lower case letters, making the baseline already far more dominant than the cap height, and
2) since this is a stylized font, the top of the T actually comes to a point, which is a very precarious place to create a horizontal relationship with another group of text. Furthermore, the arm (of the T) is at an angle that further throws off the horizontal balance of the text.

Now that those issues have been addressed, what to do about placement? Personally, I would take the whole 1948 Town & Country text block and shrink it to maybe, 50% of what it is now. You might find that doing this will require you to remove the text outline anyways, as it will likely become distracting at this size. Right now the text is heavy and clunky, you want it to be a footnote to the part of the piece you obviously put the most work into. Make its dimensions somehow relate to the car itself, such as the width between the wheels or something. Just glancing at the car itself, the horizontal chrome lines on the grill would be a nice figure to ratio to the text: Take the whole height of the car's grill, then make that the Cap height of the text. Play around with different ratios to see what is comfortable.

The logo. Again, this element is huge and overwhelming. It's literally pressing down on your car, and it's currently the most visually dominant element in the composition. Your car is subtle and light, so my eye keeps getting drawn back up to the dark, oppressive logo, which then pushes me back down again. After you've shrunk the text to an appropriate size, take the logo and shrink it down. A lot. Again, make it proprotional to the car; by now, since the text should have a relationship with the car, you're relating everything in the composition to each other. Then decide on a placement of the logo. It should perhaps be placed somewhere that highlights its relationship to the text, so if the width of the logo == the width of one of the words, place it above or below that word. Perhaps placing it elsewhere would be fine as well; subtlely reinforcing the relationship without forcing it too much. I would place the logo and text in one of the bottom corners, as these seem to be the positions favored by car manufacturers. Another option is dead center, but I'd be cautious of this approach, as it can come off as looking something like a trophy plaque. Play around with the placement (giving it appropriate padding against the border of the image, but not too much). You will probably need to move the car around as well.

Lastly, the background. To be honest, if all you're going to add some perspective lines and call it a day, leave a simple radial gradient background. The point of the portfolio piece isn't to show that you can draw straight lines to represent a room, but to showcase your work as being professional. If you aren't willing to spend as much time on the background as you are on the car, just make it as simple as possible.

I hate to sound too harsh, but as it stands, you're undermining your work and making it look cheap. So please, before you consider this one "in the can," give it another go and make it look like the professional piece it deserves to be!

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ngdawg

Bermuda made some good points. The additions to the piece take away from your artistic interpretation...tone'em down and let the beauty of the car be the first thing seen.
Just want to say, it was this drawing that got me into my obsession with doing motorcycles in Illustrator(I'm working on my 4th one!!)

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fnaqzna

Gotta go with Bermuda and ngdawg... the final with the large logos aren't helping your image.

That said... it's some damn fine work. I covet such skill.

Mister Coaster

Well, its about time I got some feedback on the "final" piece. And I love constructive criticism.

Great points all around, bermuDa. The "hero" is definately the car, and I have another version of this (on a computer that is currently down) that addresses almost all of your points, with the exception of a "real" background. I like hearing stuff that was well though out and not just the run of the mill "great stuff, man." type of comments. I'll be reworking this piece again, and will post it later. (probably much later, I have a few projects underway)

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bermuDa

I'm glad you appreciate it, I missed critting I look forward to seeing what else you come up with!

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Sun Tzu

excellent work, truly. When you say you used a photo as reference, do you mean you had it aside or traced? Have you used Streamline? If so what do you think about it. Again, either way its a great show of skill, Bravo.

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Mister Coaster

Sun: I placed the photo on a separate layer and locked it. I then traced it out piece py piece using the pen tool & a mouse. I didn't use the auto trace or live trace, it's all me. I have not used Streamline.

Also, I finally got my "art" computer up and running, so I'll be posting a few more things shortly.

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Willravel

Background ideas:
Miami

Rodondo Beach

Newport

Mister Coaster

Hey, I used to walk on that strech of beach in Redondo on my lunch hour when I worked there.

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hunnychile

WOW MC!!! Niiiiice.....

You did a great job on that car! I wish I could learn to use Illustrator like you guys.

Thanks for sharing - it's quite inspiring.

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majik_6

I agree with most of the above posters. The car is gorgeous, and really shows off your technical skills (as well as your ability to interpret a source into a vector-based medium--which, as I'm sure you know, is harder than it may sound ).

That being said, I think that bermuda hit the nail(s) on the head. I'm looking forward to seeing the revisions that you'd mentioned.

Overall, great job! I think that if you incorporate some of these suggestions into your own vision and with your own (obvious) talents you'll have some serious portfolio-worth material.

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Willravel

Whoa...that's a bit of a coincidence. Maybe that makes it a good background.

Gorgeous work on that car. I'm not completely useless drawing with a pencil, but I'll always be in awe of people that can illustrate on a computer. Thanks for sharing!