Case Tractor Tutorial

8/13/2019 Case Tractor Tutorial

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series: category:

F ast R ender

category:

F

content:

- understand how to paint digitally over a photo to generate ideas

- learn how to control and develop your design as you sketch

- use large and textured brushes to gradually form the sketch


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About the author

Miles graduated from Coventry Universitys Transport De-sign course in 1999 and has since worked as an automo-

tive and product designer for companies such as Pininfa-

rina, Volvo and SAIC, as well as Movado watches, product

design consultancies and as a freelance product designer.

Knowledge is Power - How to use

Insight Tutorials

The purpose of these tutorials is to explain not only what

is being done but why during the process of a sketch. The

aim is that you can either apply these ideas to your own

work or modify them to your liking. Everybody works in adifferent way and it is not my intention here to produce a

software user guide with a series of commands that canbe followed to produce exactly the same illustration. This

would not only be impossible but would not in my opin-

ion achieve the best long-term results. Every part of the

process is not explained in every tutorial so that repeti-

tion is kept to a minimum and each tutorial can be used

to analyse slightly different aspects more deeply, giving

maximum value and efciency.

These tutorials focus on explaining honestly the thought

and action process I go through using my normal work-

ing methods, with high resolution visuals and highlighted

areas to eliminate confusion as to what part of the sketch

is being described; simply hover the mouse over the

highlighted words and a halo will appear over the relevantarea on the sketch.

This will hopefully give you the power and understanding

to improve your own work in your own way by introducing

methods, tips and a few tricks that you can apply to digital

sketches in whichever way you feel most comfortable. Al-

most all of the principles also apply to analogue sketchingbut the techniques are sometimes different. It is the most

commonly used software therefore the commands and

tools highlighted refer specically to Photoshop but are

not exclusive to that program.

The power of insight means that you will hopefully startyour next sketch with new ideas and fresh inspirationthat will inject a big advancement into your work. If you

are a student or hoping to become a student of automo-

tive design then, in my opinion, the faster you can gain

this knowledge the better in order to gain a competitive

advantage. Remember the last time you made a big

improvement in one drawing and realised you could sud-

denly work at a higher level than before? Those eurekamoments are what its all about.

One of the reasons I have produced these as e-books is

so that the images are on your screen without the need

for scanning. All the images used in this pdf are included

as jpegs that you can open in your favourite software andwork over if you wish. In fact I highly recommend workingover the top of these images if you are trying to duplicate

them. You can even make a slideshow out of them to use

as a screensaver to remind you of the process.

By all means try and re-create the illustration if it inspiresyou (and I sincerely hope it does). I have received many

sketches that people have produced after following my

tutorials and they are sometimes very similar, sometimes

more of an interpretation in their own work. Either way

they express inspiration and usually demonstrate an

understanding and advance which has encouraged meto continue producing more tutorials. Above all read andfamiliarise yourself with the narrative and how it relates to

the sketch at each stage, then try to use it inparallelwith

your own work and have it alongside you as a reference.

You need to work hard to improve your sketching and

there is no substitute for practice but it is what you learn

and apply to your practice that will make the difference.

Remember - sketching and rendering is a tool and is only

part of the design process. It is however the rst creativevisual step and sets the tone for the quality of the nished

product. It is also the skill which best illustrates your ability

to visualise ideas. It shows whether or not you understand

and can evaluate form, which follows function and com-

pletes a successful design. At the early stages of your

automotive design career especially you will be judgedmost strongly by your abilities in this area when being se-lected to study design or work professionally in this highly

competitive eld.

Good luck and happy sketching,

Miles Waterhouse BA (hons) - Transport Design

Page 2


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The aim for this tutorial is to concentrate on how and why

changes and developments were made to the sketch. The

rst slide shows how bold and broad brushstrokes can bemade over a photograph used as an underlay to spark

ideas from the beginning.

There are some speedpainting techniques used here. For

example, the ideas ow after the sketch has started and

the concept is born along with the rendering. The advan-tages of this are a higher likelihood of original ideas and

a potentially exciting voyage into the unknown - youre

never sure what youre going to get when you start out

with this method. The gradual and evolutionary nature of

the process however keeps you in control at all times. The

disadvantages are the greater chance you could end up

with nothing at the end, especially if you are new to the

technique and less able to be exible with ideas as thesketch evolves. As this tutorial shows on page 5, you often

have to be able to take a step back in order to progress

along a better route. The ability to be able to scrub out

a lot of the work already done (at any stage, somtimes

even near what you thought was the end!) is an important

one and develops with time as your faith in this techniquegrows.

Where this particular sketch differs from a pure speed-

painting is the use of an underlay and a dened idea of

what vehicle and brand will be. It begins with a strong

foundation and doesnt rely on random forms generated at

the start.

A lot of my tutorials deal with the design being largely re-

solved in black and white then coloured later on whereas

this sketch develops with colour from the start. The colour

is simply sampled from the underlying photo so that there

is no time wasted in deciding on a palette. Owing to the

fact that this brands products are always the same colour,

sampling from an existing product photo felt like the right

approach.

The end result in this case is a loose rendering. It is

something

to be developed much further. However the level of sug-

gested denition and detail is relatively high for an illustra-tion that took less than two hours to produce.

One of the main values of this method is that is allows you

to make an idea convincing and realistic in a short amount

of time. Sometimes it can be difcult for a designer to

know where the sketch nishes and the rendering beings.It is my opinion that now 3D computer modelling and ren-

dering is so accessible and effective, the initial sketching

phase has been freed up.

Condence and Efciency

When you become condent in one area of illustratingyour designs try and do it more quickly. It is logical that

time saved in an area where you know what you are

doing is better spent in another, less certain one. As youbecome more condent in your sketching you will be able

to transfer some of your energies to the later developmen-

tal stages which will require much more effort. If you have

laboured for days over a sketch there is a greater chance

you will either have become bored of it or too attached

to it, or both. A sketch can eaily stop being a disposable

design communication tool and become a work of art in

the eyes of the designer, which can be damaging to the

development of the product.

I highly recommend breaking out the big brushes, throw-

ing caution to the wind and starting to throw some big

marks down on paper from the outset whenever you have

the freedom to do so. As you can see here in this sketch

progression of a retro-futurist Citroen, I rst concentratedon making some big brushstrokes to begin with. These

very quickly sparked off the basic design. The next step

was to recognise the strong aspects, simplify and then

detail the proposal and an hour later a dened sketched

proposal had emerged.

A valuable lesson I was taught at design school is that you

only need very few lines to communicate the basic form of

a car; ve or six in most cases, so keep this in mind from

the outset when creating a theme.

Page 3


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Page 4

Using the existing Case Quadtrac as a base, a very rough

painting is made using colours sampled from the underlay

image. The placement of the main features such as the

tracks and grille are respected and some modicationsare made from the start. To start with, different window

graphics and slightly different lines are quickly suggested

knowing that they will spark off more ideas, even though

they might not be nal design features. The important con-

sideration here is to make the vehicle original as soon as

possible because the aim is for an advanced styling con-

cept. It must also look credible however and therefore it isuseful to base the foundation on an existing real vehicle.

It is also worth noting that I wasnt familiar with this kind of

layout and vehicle which made it vital to closely reference

a real product.

hover here to show underlay image


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Page 5

Now you can see the ideas are starting to ow from the

intitial rough painting and fast, energetic broad brush

strokes are used to capture the essence of these ideas.

Mainly the diagonal line sparked off by the window graphicand more sloping hood/bonnet are emphasised. Also an

extra volume to the rear is suggested in order to break fur-

ther away from the original vehicles proportion and make

new ideas possible. The image has now become even

rougher because there was a sudden ow of inspiration

which needs to be captured quickly. This often happens

and sometimes a sketch needs to take a step backwardsin level of nish in order to really move forwards in terms

of design and overall quality.

At this stage even the background colours are being

sampled and used to help form the outline of the design.


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Page 6

The design that is beginning to emerge has an aggres-

sive, thrusting feel to it which is accentuated with some

dynamic headlamps. The sloping front is exaggerated

even further with a quick mask being made of a wind-screen that covers the hood, becoming more of a canopy

than a functional screen. A little volume is given to the

black plastic cover on the inside of the front track be-

cause up until now this could be an aperture or wheelarch

feature. Its better to start thinking of this as a volume at

an early stage so that it can develop and integrate with the

rest of the vehicles form.

You can see that not much work was done since the last

page but the effect is quite dramatic. The progression is

fast in the beginning and slows down towards the end as

more decisions are made and more care is required to

nish off the proposal.


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Page 7

The canopy windscreen seemed one step too far for an

industrial vehicle and another idea of a top forward sloping

screen is begun with a couple of brush-strokes.

Again, only a few brushstrokes added on this page but

such important ones in the development of the concept

that they needed to be highlighted.


8/20Page 8

The headlamps are also felt to be too stylised to be cred-

ible on this type of vehicle. The grille area has some light

cast on it in the form of airbrushed white and this is then

erased strategically to form a rib pattern on the panel.The top forward screen idea contrasts dramatically with

the sloping hood and is also practical and believable so

is developed further into a wraparound screen and side

glass with a quick mask and black airbrush. The rearmost

volume is reduced by brushing over it with white. The

textured brushes are great for keeping the form open to

interpretation so that good decisions can be made beforereal denition happens. The fuzzy edges and out-of-focus

effect helps to remind you that youre nowhere near the

end. A footwell for the steps up to the cab is begun with a

quickly masked black shadow.


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The bodywork is relatively uninteresting up until now so

work is begun on adding more form and features. The

front needs a stronger more industrial feel and a bar is

added which wraps over the grille and takes a separatebodyside surface and links it with the other side. This bar

incorporates a single oodlamp. The bodywork is taken

round the back of the glasshouse to begin to dene the

back of the vehicle and work is done on picking out the

edge a little more with some white brushwork.

Bodywork surfaces are being played around with usinga thin light coloured brush. This is a bit like creating an

under-lay after youre started rendering. The reason I

use a light tone of the bodywork colour is that the surface

boundaries look like they could be highlights or light lines

and dont distract too much.


10/20Page 10

A large and highly functional looking single headlamp

unit is added. It is felt that the narrow frontal area of the

vehicle doesnt benet graphically from two separate

headlamps. The single unit allows for a cleaner and morepurposeful design. A relatively large brush is still being

used for these details while they are still being experi-

mented with. The volume of the bodywork needs bringing

out more using light so a gentle sweep of white airbrush

is applied leading from the glasshouse graphic down to

the front grille. This not only integrates the two volumes

but will allow further sculpting into the bodywork with body

coloured brushwork.


11/20Page 11

A concept illustration such as this needs to be surprising

and unexpected but still simple and easy to understand.The bodywork on a vehicle like this needs to express

strength and utility and the challenge here is to do this in

a stylish way. A simple arc is masked off and lled with

body colour to create an upwards facing elliptical surface

in a way that is unusual, muscular and simple. It suggests

it is formed around a very large engine and puts the focus

on the power of the vehicle. The top hood surface follows

this new surface down and exposes more of the top ood-lamp housing which now protrudes from lower down. The

far track is brought forward to give a stronger stance and

some more detail is lightly applied to the near track.

When sculpting with colour in this way it helps if you

imagine literally carving from a solid block. Imagine

surfaces continuing beyond their visible boundaries. You

should understand how the boundary would change if the

intersecting surfaces are altered.


12/20Page 12

The new surface is perfect to house an elliptical detail that

echoes its outline; a bit like a partial offset. The location of

a combined vent and badge feature is planned for this but

the rst priority is to make its outline graphic work with thewhole design. Consequently an elliptical mask is placed

in the centre of the surface at the peak of the curve and

brushed over with black. It becomes apparent that the

near track isnt really jumping out at the viewer in the way

it should considering the dramatic viewpoint and perspec-

tive so white overlaid brushwork is applied to the track to

increase contrast.


13/20Page 13

This is the point at which some sharpening of the whole

image begins. The outline is cleaned up especially around

the glasshouse. Where the bodywork already blends

into the white background some contrasting bodyworkcoloured reections are added to pick out the edge. Black

outlines show the edge of the wraparound glass and a

concave bodywork surface is added to the rear which

contrasts with the bulging, convex hood surface treat-

ment. This now gives a dened design which can have

door shutlines drawn onto it, sharpening up the sketch

even further. The inner track panel is given a more deniteshape and its outline is hardened up to both contrast with

the curvaceous bodywork and work with the triangular

track.


14/20Page 14

The blue sky colour left over from the initial sampled co-

lour sketch isnt really helping the image and so is covered

with white. The design now jumps off the page more. The

rst ne details are thought about with some splitlinesbreaking up the inner track panel. Some spray pipes are

sketched on around the base of the grille. The ne details

are begun at the point nearest the viewer which as always

will be the focal point and therefore be more detailed that

the rest of the illustration. Vague detailing is applied to the

main headlamp which is supposed to be frosted and wont

expose much detail - however there is enough to showthere are two lamps inside covered by a single lens. Extra

oodlamps above the cab are outlined.

The detailing at this stage is not made up of serious

propositions and is made in the spirit of the sketch. It is

designed to compliment or emphasise the existing form

rather than conform to strict manufacturing constraints. Itis important however because it helps describe the form

and can inspire real detail ideas later on.


15/20Page 15

This type of vehicle is relatively uncommon and in these

instances showing a human gure really helps to under-

stand scale and size. A driver is illustrated to achieve a

sense of scale and as a bonus adds depth and realityto the sketch. The technique for doing this is to use an

overlay layer with a black or white brush used lightly to

pick out highlights and lowlights. The overlay layer means

that the previous details on the glass are not hidden and

the illusion of transparency is maintained.


16/20Page 16

Further realism is given to the cab with masked out and

overlaid sillhouettes of the far window openings. A roof

aperture is also created which is casting light on the

drivers face and in reality would provide a lighter andairier feeling cab. The manufacturers logo is sampled

from a real photo and pasted onto the elliptical graphic on

the bodywork. Before it is pasted on, a vent or inset area

is quickly brushed on to bring up the detail level on this

feature because it is close to the viewer.


17/20Page 17

The rear is worked into with a at white brush to pick out

an outline and remove a lot of visual weight. There is

nothing packaged in this area and the weight and power

of the vehicle is thrown forward even more if this reawardvolume is removed. The nearest track denitely needs a

certain amount of detail to be convincing and this is ap-

plied quite roughly with a low-contrasting grey. The high

contrast track with white highlights is reassessed as the

realism of the sketch increases. In reality this whole as-

sembly would be very dark and low contrast so from now

on it will be the detail of this area that brings it into focusrather than contrast.

Consideration for the overall values of the rendering will

give it the feeling of being realistic regardless of how loose

it is. If you take a photo and blur it or add lters, it will still

look like a real photo underneath because the basic tonal

values will remain the same.


18/20Page 18

Light from the bright white background is wrapped around

the edge of the bodywork front and rear in the form of

reections. The background is cleaned up further and at

the rear is blended into the foreground. The door shutlinesare seen as too unconventional and placed wrongly so are

covered with some solid bodywork colour so that they can

be re-applied.

To achieve the wrapped light effect, take a medium size

airbrush and lightly apply background colour along the

outline. Remember that this is a form of glare so make

sure it fades away gradually. Pick an area for the centre ofthe glare that will benet from it. For instance here I place

the brightest point on the radius where the windscreen

surface meets the hood.


19/20Page 19

The door shutlines are re-applied suggesting a more

conventional and feasible aperture which leads down onto

access steps which are quickly brushed in to get an idea

from placement in relation to the door. As well as improv-ing the door shutlines the rearmost dished surface is

cleaned up and sharpened. The top line of the glasshouse

is also cleaned up and straightened to emphasise the

smooth wrap of the windscreen. Some loose ends on the

front oodlamp are removed to give a clean sillhouette.


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The nal main feature is an access ladder which gives

the desired level of functional appearance. It was felt that

hidden steps are too rened and the ladder is important

visually because it is utilitarian looking and sits in theun-styled, functional lower area of the vehicle around the

drivetrain, tracks and chassis. A low level doorhandle goes

in which is large and practical although directional and

styled to t the bodywork. The nished vehicle would be

unlikely to have a styled handle like this but at the concept

stage it makes the whole proposal easier to digest if it

integrates with the rest of the design.

At this point the sketch was considered to communicate

the idea at the right level of detail and impact and it wasnt

worth rening further until it was presented for possible

selection.

I hope this tutorial has been valuable to you and clearlycommunicated the decision making process I went

through when producing this sketch, together with a few

hints to help you re-create work in a similar style.

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