Tag: Concept Artwork

Chevy Spark Concept

The Spark is a new small car from Chevrolet. The Spark production car comes from a concept car called the Beat. This artwork is based on the Beat concept car mostly because I prefer the Beat’s headlight style.

When I saw the Beat concept car the first thing I noticed was the Chevy double-grille, a style which they use on many of their vehicles. I like the double-grille look but what inspired me to do a paint scheme was the fender lines on the side of the body.

On the side of the body, the front fender has an line and the back has two lines. That back top arch pointing down to the front fender line got me wondering about how it would look if the two lines where connected.

So I started by adding a side stripe connecting the two lines but felt it needed a little more so I ended up making the whole top half of the car semi-gloss black. After doing that, I felt that the top half was too dark so I thought I would match the hood with the bottom color to break it up.

Another stripe was added to follow the body lines on the bottom of the door that stretches over the back fender. Two small stripe accents were added up above the back wheel. I finished up by using gold as the secondary color and then lowering the car overall.

Here is a link the official Chevy Spark website. Below is a video on the Chevy Beat Concept Car.

Illuminati Concept Car – Latest Edition

This is the latest art edition of the Illuminati Concept Car.

In this version the correct headlights were added along with a pair of chrome front bumpers. At the back there were adjustments made to flatten the rear, also added is the car’s number “77”.

When you compare the previous version below with the new version above you can see the differences.

The latest news is that they are now officially one of 13 teams left in the Mainstream Class. They are also one of only 3 all electric cars is that class.

See the Progressive Automotive X Prize website for more information about this event.

Speedstar Vicky Concept Revisited

This is the back view and now new front view of the Speedstar Vicky concept car. The Speedstar Vicky is one of three concepts I did for a Rod & Custom Magazine article some time ago.

Since then I have received a lot of emails from people asking what the front end looks like?

I have always had in mind what I wanted to do for the front but never seemed to find the time. But as the emails came in I started thinking more about it and decided to work it in between some other projects.

Illuminati Motor Works Concept Car – Taking Shape

The guys over at Illuminati Motor Works have uploaded a new video showing how the concept car “Seven” is taking shape. The way they describe the building process it reminds me of the way Ed “Big Daddy” Roth use to build his Show Cars.

Read about the concept artwork I created for Illuminati Motor Works.

Illuminati Motor Works Concept Car – Seven

illuminati-concept-art

This is artwork of the concept car “Seven” from Illuminati Motor Works.

Illuminati is one of 42 teams left competing for $5 million in the Progressive Automobile X Prize.

The rules for the Progressive Automobile X Prize is that the cars must seat four, have four wheels and have a minimum range of 200 miles. They also have to get the equivalent of 100 miles to the gallon plus be feasible as a consumer product.

The Illuminati Motor Works team members are:
Kevin Smith: Team Leader and Principle Engineer,
Josh Spradlin: Graphic Designer/ Fabricator,
Thomas Pasko: Master Automotive Technician,
George Kennedy: Mechanical Engineer
Nathan Knappenburger: Computer Science and Electronics Engineer.

I have been working with Josh, their graphic designer/fabricator, on creating artwork for the project. Josh does a great job at designing. What I have been doing is taking Josh’s sketches and redrawing them using illustrator.

original-line-work

What makes this project a challenge is that the vehicle is so different from anything we currently see on the road. It not like they can say, “Take an existing model and add this or change that”. So when working on a project like this it is great to have someone like Josh who can direct me on what the final car will look like with his sketches.

Below are links to recent articles about them in The State Journal-Register and the Illinois Times.

The State Journal-Register | Springfield, IL
Local guys driven to win $5M car competition – Illinois Times

X PRIZE team passes the test – Illuminati Motor Works is one of 43 left in international competition

Find out more about Illuminati Motor Works at illuminatimotorworks.org. You can also friend/follow them on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

TATA Nano in Sunshine Yellow

This is a new color version of the custom TATA Nano I did earlier.

I posted the custom Nano artwork images in my Flickr account and someone commented that they were planning on buying one and was curious to see how the custom black/orange version would look in sunshine yellow instead of the orange. Sunshine yellow is one of the Nano’s factory colors.

In the majority of my artwork I use many different fades, so changing colors is not so easy. But on the Nano artwork I only used two fades to make up the orange, which made changing the colors easier.

That being the case, I did one up for them to see. What do you like best, the sunshine yellow version or the orange version?

Custom Tata Nano Concept Art & Illustrations

Customized Tata Nano Concept Art

When the Tata Nano hit the scene as the “world’s cheapest car,” most people shrugged it off as basic transportation. I didn’t. I saw a tiny blank canvas begging for attitude. This project started as a simple “what if?” — what if you treated the Nano like a legit custom build instead of an economy box?

These Tata Nano concept art pieces push that idea all the way: lowered stance, wide wheels, bold paint, and a little hot-rod swagger. Whether you’re a die-cast collector hunting for Hot Wheels-style Tata Nano ideas or just someone who loves micro-car mods, this is my take on the Nano’s hidden potential.

If you’ve never seen a Nano treated like a custom project, you’re in for something different. This series started as a fun design exercise and turned into a full set of illustrations exploring how far you can push a car that was never meant to be “performance anything.” Below are the final renderings from that experiment.

Here’s a bit more about how I approached the design work:

When I first started sketching these, my goal was to keep the Nano recognizable while still giving it some attitude. Since it was a brand-new model at the time, I didn’t want to go overboard with body mods and lose the shape that made it unique. So I focused on custom paint, wider wheels, a lowered stance, and a few subtle tweaks — like the front-end change on the orange and black version between the fog lights. It was just enough to hint at performance without turning it into something unidentifiable.

Customized Tata Nano Concept Art - Orange and Black Hot Rod Style

Why Customize the World’s Cheapest Car?

So you might ask, why create concept art of what is being called the world’s cheapest car? Well, I remember reading that the spirit of hot rodding is to take what has been manufactured from the car companies and in one way or the other, improve it. It seems that you can take almost any model ever made and find one that has been modified, so why not the Nano?

 

Tata Nano Vector Art with Custom Chrome Wheels and Purple Paint

Below is more information about the Nano from TATA’s website.

“The Nano is rear-wheel drive and it has an all-aluminum, two-cylinder engine. Its tailpipe emission performance exceeds regulatory requirements and in terms of overall pollutants, it has a lower pollution level than two-wheelers being manufactured in India today. The name ‘Nano’ was chosen as it denotes high technology and small size.”

Working on the Nano was one of those projects that reminded me why I love concept art in the first place — taking something ordinary and imagining what it could be with the right mix of creativity and car-culture attitude. If you enjoyed this little experiment, feel free to explore more of my custom car illustrations or let me know what other models you’d like to see reimagined. There’s no shortage of overlooked cars out there waiting for a second life on the sketchpad.


http://www.tatamotors.com