In today’s Tuts+ Premium tutorial, I’m going to show you how to create a stylized performance car from a reference image using many gradients, custom art brushes, patterns, clipping masks and not a single gradient mesh or blur in sight!
Introduction
In today’s premium tutorial, I’m going to show you how to create a stylized performance car from a reference image using many Gradients, custom Art Brushes, patterns, Clipping Masks and not a single Gradient Mesh or blur in sight!
Car Stock Images
You’ll find when you look for stock images of cars, the big branded cars you may fancy will be very hard to find from professional stock market websites. This is because in order to use a branded car for commercial purposes, you would require written permission from the brand itself. Therefore car stock is only offered for editorial use. As always refer to the terms and conditions of your stock market supplier for more details.
The stock image I’m going to be using in this tutorial can be found via Photodune.
Step 1
Although the two following steps are not necessary, it may help those who find it hard distinguishing dark area details. If you’re wanting to vector the interior of the car, it’s not helpful when you have a stock image with blacked out windows, however there is a little work around.
Using the Lasso Tool (L) in Photoshop with a 2px Feather, draw around the area of the windows and fill them with an off white fill color on a new layer.
By then changing the Blending Mode to Soft Light, you can then see some of the detailing within. With this one you could possibly include the back seat details and some of the front seat.
Step 2
A similar process can be done with the wheels and grill, which I would like to see more clearly. With an off white fill, use the Brush Tool (B) to cover the areas on a new layer you wish to lighten.
Then again change the Blending Mode to Soft Light to make this area a lot easier to see.
Step 3
Now go into Adobe Illustrator and start a New Document with landscape orientation. Double-click on “Layer 1″ and rename it “Reference”. Go to File > Place and locate your stock image. Use the Free Transform Tool (E) to scale the image to the art board.
Create a New Layer and rename “BG”. Within, draw a white fill Rectangle (M) over the canvas and reduce the Opacity to 50%.
Create a New Layer and rename it “Line Art”.
If you’re working from a white car on a white background, like I am here, I find adding an additional Rectangle (M) over the canvas with the Blending Mode Color Burn and Opacity 50% helps make the image stand out more. Depending on the image you use, will depend on which fill color to set this rectangle, as some colors will pick up artifacts on the reference more than others.
Step 4
I’m going to start drawing the line art of the car. Although it won’t be visible in the final product, it helps me construct the sections of the car a lot easier, so the stroke settings are irrelevant – as long as you don’t expand the lines! You’ll also find it a lot easier in the line art steps to have Smart Guides (Command + U) enabled. I start with the body of the car. Treat the spoiler and wing mirrors as separate entities in this.
Step 5
Draw around the shapes for the windows and use Pathfinder > Minus Front to cut them away from the main body image. If you notice I have not drawn them individually because I wanted to maintain a straight and uniform line around the entire shapes for the non-white, non-body sections.
Duplicate the shape, lock it and hide it for now. Then draw shapes for the lights, air vent and grill. Use Pathfinder > Minus Front again to remove theses shapes.
