I was just wondering how much weight you guys give to sketches. For me I find alot of inspiration in them, but I am not always sure that the a "real life" version of the sketch would be the same. Obviuosly, much is dependent on the quality of the sketch and also the realism. Here are a few examples of what I am talking about. I am not trying to bash anyone, because both of these pieces are great and far better than anything I could muster. Still, I guess they serve their purpose to inspire, even if the reality of the cars is not so.
if i remember correctly, the sketches you've posted (on the right) were done as concepts around tractor grilled cars. ...i'd say those look pretty doable in the right hands. but in my mind, the purpose of concept sketches is to hash out possibilities around design in several directions. what happens between paper and your garage is a big dose of practicality depending on what skills and resources you have on hand. i suppose if you have the skill and the resources anything is possible. ...or you could just be left with a cool drawing.
funny i just updated one of my threads with a concept sketch working out the rear end of my Buick. check it out and let me know what you think... http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=220538
I make little doodles on paper until I figure out what I want to do, but I go more on the image that's in my mind than what I can put down on paper because I'm just a so so artist. It's definitely worth it to keep scribbling on paper to come up with ideas though.
Forget the concept sketch...THAT CAR IS BAS ***S! Either way, you will only be improving on a killer Buick.
Ill tell you- they have helped a ton on 3 major builds I have (or had) in my shop. Especially when a customer claimed they 'didnt want that'. when I reviwed the renderings with them- it was an 'oh yeah- I did sign off on this huh' and then when it was done- loved the work , just suffered from a bit of CRS I guess. They are well worth it to have. Two great guys I can recommend too if you need someone. One is in Michigan , the other in MA
My 2¢ as an artist I think the best uses of design sketches are 1) capture an idea before you loose it. 2) Flesh an idea out. The original inspiration might have been just a flash of one section of a car. So you use the sketch process to think through the rest of the idea. 3) Work through proportions, stance, direction of paint, interior, and etc. 4) keep you fired up about the project. 5) Visualize construction details, think through, lets say, new cross member layout to mount odd engine and ****** to old frame rails, etc. The sketch is drawn as the uncompromised ideal. But the builder has to work in the real world so lets take Ed Newton & Ed Roth Newton would draw the ideal of what it could look like. But if Roth had a part on hand, or found something that would work in the junkyard, it would end up on the finished car, instead of a specially fabricated piece to match the drawing. Roth would compromise to get the car done, but not to the point that he totally screwed up the thing. An artist might have drawn a roofline with a certain curve. But the fabricator (who could in many c***es also be the artist) has a roof section off another car, or something with a slightly deferent curve that would fit perfect if everyone involved can live with the car when its rolled out of the garage and looked at from every angle them go for it! Some times it even ends up looking better than the sketch. If you too rigidly follow a sketch then you could p*** up an even cooler idea for part of the car that might come along while your building it. The majority of Hot Rods and Kustoms Ive ever seen built. They were built by eye, and seat of the pants gut feelings, to decide what works, and what doesnt. If a builder needs drawings to take measurements from. Then youd need to hire a Design Drafter, &/or Engineer, or Industrial Designer Add Lawyers, Accountants, & Business Majors and TA DA!!! Youve got the Detroit method. On the other hand if the builder has all the money in the world, all the time it will take, and all the talent go for it! Ultimately, he who is paying gets to decide how the car is built. But unless they are stupid they will listen to others who have done it before them. Billy Gibbons hired a Detroit car designer to help out on Cadzilla and it came out great! So But sketches are still just lines on paper. The first time I laid flames on a car. I drew out a picture of how I wanted them. But when I started w/the Blue Line tape it took me five minutes to realize that those sketches were worthless. And I had to deal with the real 3-d car. So I just went for it and the sketch went into the round file. Take Care!
Who drew the sketches on the right of the tractor grilled cars? Is there anyhting like this around in reality? Mark.
I tend to really like concept sketches. The problem is when they lead to the building of an actual car, I am usually disapointed in the result because it doesn't duplicate the sketch exactly. If I had just seen the car first I would probably love it, but having seen a skectch, I get an idea of what I think it SHOULD look like and if the result is not perfect, I am disappointed.
I think (speaking as an artist) that there is a big difference between a concept sketch and a design drawing. A sketch is, by definition 'sketchy' and cannot necessarily be used to translate directly into real life. A design drawing should be true to life as far as dimension etc go and so is therefore much more liable to be able to translate.
Concept drawing can be very important to give you a solid direction of where you want to go. It allows you to try different things on paper that are too time consuming and costly to do in steel. I did the art on the Hill and Tully Special. It's our Bonneville project. I think I did that in '06. We haven't gotten to far on it beyond fixing the lower quarters and filling the cowl vent. But the body came from a creekbed, so it will take some time! Kevin is building a new frame table so we can start on the ch***is. We have all the moly, but our single frame table is always occupied with customer work. Kevin hasn't touched the car for about a year, but having too much customer work is the whole point of being in business right? We still have been collecting parts, buying the moly for the ch***is, the rear end, etc. I think we were all hoping it would be a roller by now. But we've just been too busy.
I give a lot of weight to sketches. Sometimes so much so my pencil breaks. Actually I thinks sketches or design concepts are extremely important. More so if you do work for other people like CHOPSHOP was saying. If nothing else, just to cover your a$$. The most important reason is to put money in my pocket!
I am terrible at drawing. I would love to have some sketches of my Galaxie convertible done by car guys. I am sure that folks that do this for a living could really put some unique ideas out there. Sketches are exciting and I think help refine and clarify the end result befor the money is spent.
I tend to disagree...when I do a car, or anything else for that matter, I do not sketch anything out...I simply start building...the plans are all in my head...why do I need something on paper...??? As an artist, I really don't need to sketch anything out...I can see it in my head... R-
I wasted an entire 100-degree day at the junkyard getting the backlight out of a wrong car because a sketch in Rod & Custom showed a chopped '53 Chevy with one installed. Then I had to go back to the same junkyard and get one that did match the contours of the body. So I pretty much hate concept sketches. (Especially when they say things like "this might take a little work, but I ..."). Building metal and drawing shapes are two different things. No built car ever looks exactly like the sketch. Do I enjoy looking at the sketches? Yes. Would I ever try to build a car to look like a sketch? No. Artists tend to take too many liberties when they draw cars. A good example of this is the fastback '53 Chevy that was in a magazine a few years back. Some guys built the car and I think it looks like ***! But it was so sharp in the drawings. Because the artist made "adjustments" along the way to the proportions and lines of the car.
I think the question wasn't whether you like or use them, it's whether you value them... as in "would you pay for one, if so how much?" Think about all "Photoshop this for me" posts.
As Rosanna Rosanna Danna used to say: "Oh. Never mind!" I think they'd make lovely Christmas gifts, in case my wife happens to be reading this.
I think the best way to view concept sketches in terms of building cars, is for inspiration not as a ridged blue print! It's like when I was a technical illustrator, every once in a while wed catch a disgruntled engineer trying to take measurements off one of our drawings. Then wed have to explain to them that our job was to try to clearly communicate information like, where the on/off switch is on the control panel, via a Tech Manual. Not draw a construction blue print! To save time (the companys policy) we therefore eyeballed our drawings from whatever object we needed to depict. Sure we tried to get the proportions as close as we could But to take measurements Bad Idea! As an artist I do concept sketches to capture ideas that I might have before I loose them. If someone then builds a car from that they would have to tweak it into reality like you say. But if a concept sketch inspires a great build Well then mission accomplished!
Don't blame the artist if the builder doesn't have the talent to shape the metal to how he wants it! I will stand behind this statement: ANY drawing could be reproduced in 3D. It all depends on how much time, talent, and cubic dollars you throw at a project. You may have to custom make every single piece, but it could look spot on. Having said that, it takes a really talented designer to keep real world sheetmetal and measurements in mind and make stunning concept artwork so people don't have to break the bank. My $.02 Del
I agree 100%. No matter what field a designer works in, it usually works this way. The customer doesn't know what they want really. So you make make 3 different looking concepts to narrow it down. To keep the costs down, you do the first 3 as fast as possible. If you went and measured the ch***is of the car, and made the first 3 concepts extremely accurate, the design time/costs go way up. you've automatically made the customer spend too much money for the 2 designs he didn't like at all. If the customer has more funds, then you do again the design that is picked, but really accurate and to exact scale and proportions. But now it is worth it because the design is accepted by the customer.
+1 on that. I love to draw but no one in their right mind would say that I "could' draw. Even so I have sketch pads full of ideas for my projects.
"some of the different interpretations of this r&c concept sketch" Use a sketch for inspiration... not a blue print. I agree with the the above post, you cannot build any concept sketch into 3D. Only if the guy sketching the image is the same as the builder then...ok, but even the Foose renderings are not 100% true to the actual build. The sketch is the pretty picture to get the juices flowing, to get the boss or client excited over a project. Now if you photoshop images together and keep proportions correct, it a step above, be cause your looking a real photographs of the actual parts you will be using. Photoshop can help a sketch become more real to life. And it's cheaper than getting the parts, building the piece, then deciding you don't like it. Also note, and this is me calling it on some of the sketches presented in this post, they're illustrator overlays on photographs, yeah pretty standard to use a base reference image to get some or proportions correct, some people even have a wheel base template and they sketch bodies all day. The sketches presented in Tylerdurbens post are great to flush out ideas, but still even then the bumper guards have to be redrawn or photographed in scale to the original bumper to make sure the proportions are correct. Otherwise even these are just pretty pictures. They help get to the idea across, but they are not 100%
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