Simple rules to draw a car sketch in top view

Hi friends,
today I'll try to explane very quickly how we can draw a car in tip-up perspective or top view perspective. This time we will try to make it in 2 steps. Step 1: as you ca see from my preliminary drawing I tried to sketch a basic shape in perspective (the car body) plus another one on top (the cockpit), I used as reference 1 point perspective vanishing point (indicated as 1 V.P.) the horizontal lines are going to infinite therefore they are parallel to each others (indicated with the laying down 8 symbol). The ellipses in this perspective are quite compressed and the minor axes are always going to the vanishing point ( indicated as 1 V.P. and look at arrowed lines). Before passing to step 2 lets not forget to draw our center section very important for judging proportions (indicated as center line), last thing is the shadow of this shape indicated on the ground.
Now my advice is to make several trials following these simple rules, before passing to Step 2 .

 

 Step 2 consists in modeling the geometrical shape we drew to obtain a car shape in top perspective. Following our center section and perspective lines we can draw sections to give a real car shape according to our taste, at the end we can add also reflextions lines on side body and glass areas and later we can apply with markers some shading.

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Car designers at work, how is it?

Hi friends,
some of you asked me recently to describe a day at work for a car designer and I promised I was going to write a hub about it. So here I am trying to write about this unknown working envorinment. First of all I want to say that to be a car designer is a very special thing always for all lucky people like me. We are lucky simply because we had the opportunity to study what we love and ended up working for what we love, talent is the most important thing (no talent no job) and professional attitude is second most important thing to have to play the game correctly (discipline, be humble, hard work).
In general car designers work in design studio in which they have all tools to perform at their best, paper, colors, markers, chalks, color pencils, computers, all sort of computer illustration programs like Photoshop,
Keep reading !

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Design & Crisis

Hi friends,

as everybody knows since 6 months we are in a deep and complicated economic global crisis. It all started in US with the bad management of "subprime financial products". With the fall of the bank system an incredible domino effect occurred touching almost every country on earth. Everybody is concerned by this fast crisis that in a short period of time provoked a transversal collapse. High rate of job's loss from US to Russia passing by Europe and India, China and Japan. The automobile industry is one of the most depressed sector of activities suppliers included.

How all this is affecting design and designers life?

Some auto makers have been forced to close their design studios antennas in US or Europe and we have designers that lost their job, all automakers are trying their best to survive with severe cost reduction plans to create their "cash flow" and companies like GM are almost ready to close (US government is helping). Even Toyota, one of the safest and reachest car company on earth, is in crisis!

Honestly I do not know how all this is going to end up and in how much time, some important economic analysts say that in 2013 we will have a slow improvement to get out of this crisis.Lets say 3 or 5 years totally?

Many design students searching for internship are facing up this crisis because often design studios cannot offer internships this year, what to do? In this case I suggest to specialize in their design field following a Master Program, this option will let students use this time to get a better professional experience and be ready for next year when hopefully design studios will re-open their doors for internship and hirings.
Another solution is to find companies that are ready to offer an internship for free (no pay), but the most important will be to put a foot inside the system even if there is not a minimum of salary (according with compani policy, maybe small dsign business).Last solution is to open your own freelancing studio which could be a safe and intelligent bet.

What about designers that had the chance to keep their job and are facing up a small number of projects than previewed? To those (the great majority) I suggest to work about the future systems because this crisis will force society to change attitude in every sense and Design + Innovation could be the right solution to have a better place to live after the crisis will be gone!

Good luck!

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Design student's presentations

In september I partecipated to a school sponsored project presentation, Transportation Design Dept.
I was directly interested in it because I have managed that project for the last six months and it was the final day.
That morning I was excited to arrive in school because I espected a well organized presentation from the last six selected finalists. When it is the final day there is always something magic in the air, a bit of stress, students that are putting the last sketches up on the wall, cleaning the scale models, orientating better the spot lights at so on...

When I got there I went in the Chair of Dept. office and we talked a bit about the timing, the order of presentations, the photos to take, we drank our hot coffee and left the office to go in the show room. I had my schedule program.

In about two hours the presentation was over, every student had the same time to present his/her work and model, I took few minutes to express my opinion about positive and negative aspects of each project. My objective was, and always is, to give a constuctive critic to make sure that every student has the opportunity to get the deserved compliments but also a clear "what is left to do" in order to be the best.
I tell you that everybody had good 2D and 3D works, their progress was really evident on the last day, their sketchbooks were also a signal of their progress and improuvements.

Their weak point was the way thay where presenting their own projects, it was a sad show, not very motivating with a lack of simple rules to respect to make a good quick presentation.

So for each one I tried to explaine what type of mistakes they were making over and over again.

I'll write them down so that you can read it and think of it on your next presentation:

1. You are telling about your story to an audience not to your board of drawings, look at us and smile!
2. You are talking about Design philosophy, your design vision...do not overdue it...it gets boaring! Remember this: Title, short explanation, conclusion remarking your project objective. Total not more than 3 or 4 minutes time, after question time (and smile).
3. In front of an audience you are selling yourself, YES YOU DO! So speak clearly, do not wisper and do not be to loud,do not move too much your hands or body unless you'll look soon like a clown and people will loose concentration about your concept.
4. You make a mistake while speaking? Do not excuse yourself, just keep going and do not worry.
5.If you get negative critics do not insist about your design vision, just listen and let it go (even if you are right).
6. Be open minded, do not fall in love with your project 100% because this means you will not be objective about critics you will receive.

Now to learn how to present is not authomatic, so it is normal that young students and designers have hard time in coordinating all this. At the same time I believe that every design school today should pay more attention to this aspect for the good of their students future like it is done in ACCD Pasadena, CCS Detroit, IAAD Turin.

Good luck!

Version in italian language click Virtualcar

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