How to draw a car with Copic markers: tutorial by Michele Leonello

Dear friends,

today I would like to explane again how to draw a car in prospective using a certain step by step method. To do so I asked Michele Leonello , a designer friend of mine, to help me in the task by sketching a step by step car drawing tutorial in 8 steps.

Step 1 is about a correct line drawing. Michele Leonello started to trace prospective vanishing points to make sure to manage a good drawing in prospective, so doing he could start drawing lines and wheels to get his outline car sketch without forgetting all important details to render like: front lights, graphic color stripes, wheels details, rear mirror at so on.

 Step 2 is about markers application. Michele uses cold gray scale markers made by Copic I suggesttou to try to find the same ones to render your sketches.

We start always from light value markers to increase depth using darker gray markers always "cold gray scale" never mis cold with warm gray markers!

 Step 3 is about shadows. Shadows are important because we get real depth perception of our car in its environment, Michele uses darker gray markers to improve differences between light and dark areas, the ground car's shadow is done with a dark gray and if necessary even with a bit of black color.

 Step 4 is very similar to step 3 in fact is about ground shadow and both wheels' wells, real dark because in reality they are the darkest part of a car.

 Step 5 is also similar to step 3 and 4, here we take care of glass area. Windshield and side glasses, play with light and dark cool grays to create a transparency effect. Use darkest markers to render what is inside the car, later we will go on it with black and white pencils to create reflextions.

Step 6 is dedicated to place a background that can make a good visual support to our car sketch, in other words it has to have a shape that is not competing with the car shape to make sure 2 things are different. Example: side car view vertical rear background, 3/4 view a long horizontal background shape.

Here, for this prospective view, Michele opted for an horizontal straight dark one to contrast well car's shape, this way the background is helping to read better car's design. Using different gray markers (always cool scale tone) also the background has its on depth.

 Step 7 is about color graphics application in our case the blu stripes on car body, Michele chose the right blu marker and started decorating the hood and the top of the car, and on the side. At the same time he started also to make tight detailing using markers, pens, and black pencils.

Step 8 is also the final one. Michele leonello is ready to finish his car drawing tutorial by applying black and white pencils to make tight details. Those details are very important because they make the all illustration credible in our head, with the black pencil (try Prismacolor and Verithin color pencils) he cleans up the outline and makes better defined shadows where it is needed. With the white pencil Michele renders the light source and its effect on the car, light is great to give a real 3D effect to our drawing.

I would like to thank Michele Leonello for his professional and generous help to make this hub a good one (at least for me!).

Luciano Bove