Hot Rod Pumpkin Stencils

Hot Rod Halloween

These are some kid-friendly Hot Rod Pumpkin stencils I came up with for Halloween.

stencil-sketches

I started sketching these one day while sitting in my car having lunch. Later I scanned them into Illustrator and redrew each in vector line art. In some cases I would draw the flame section only on one side and then copy/flip it to create the other side.

stencil-templates

I haven’t had the chance to do one, but I did mock them up in Photoshop to help give you an idea of what they would look like.

You are welcome to give these pumpkin stencils a try. To print, just click on the pumpkin image or the link below each. This will open up another browser window where you can print it from your browser. Use your printer’s preferences to reduce or enlarge to get the maximum print size to fit your page.

If you complete one, please send me a image and/or video of how it turned out.

Hot Rod Pumpkin Stencil - Drak

Click and Print Hot Rod Pumpkin Stencil – “Drak”

Hot Rod Pumpkin Stencil - Frankie

Click and Print Hot Rod Pumpkin Stencil – “Frankie”

Hot Rod Pumpkin Stencil - Marti

Click and Print Hot Rod Pumpkin Stencil – “Marti”

Hot Rod Pumpkin Stencil - Skully

Click and Print Hot Rod Pumpkin Stencil – “Skully”

Vintage Dragster Artwork

This is my latest artwork titled “Vintage Dragster“.

vintage-dragster-artwork

As far as doing artwork this one rates up there as one of the most challenging ones I have done.

vintage-dragster-engine

What made this one different from the other illustrations was drawing in the details like the spoke wheels, the rail frame, and the exposed engine.

dragster-wheel-line-art

This dragster is owned by John Spradlin. John is no relation, but he does have the same name as my brother. John and I have been emailing back and forth for some time now. Sometimes I would get an email from him about his dragster and at first I would think, “When did my brother get a dragster?” then I would remember it’s from the other John.

Prints of are available in 16×24 size.

vintage-dragster-front-wheel

Below is detail information John sent me about his dragster.

1967 Speed Products Engineering (SPE) chassis by Roy Fjastad. Chevy 355C.I. 4-bolt block, Forged Steel Crank, Engle roller cam, Isky roller lifters & 1.6 ratio rockers, Track 1 aluminum heads (2.080 Int valves & 1.6 Exh valves), M/T aluminum rods, Forged pistons (moly zero gap rings), ‘mini’ starter, Milodon oil pan. PowerGlide trans W/1.76 ratio, Trans Brake, 5000 stall convertor, “Bandit” shifter, Mopar 83/4″ rear axle W/Olds axle ends, 4:10 ratio “PRO” gears, Wilwood disc brakes – .310″ thick discs. Steering box is a P-S, Butterfly steering wheel was a gift from a long time racing friend. Rear wheels are American Racing 5-spoke “Magnesium” 8.5″ width 10.5x30x15″ GoodYear slicks, Front wheels are 17″ dia M/C wire spokes W/2.25×17″ Michelin tires. Body by Tom Hanna. Seat by Tony Nancy.

Thanks, John!!!!

Redrawing The Illuminati Motor Works Logo

illuminati-logo

Josh Spradlin of Illuminati Motor Works contacted me recently about redrawing their logo. Illuminati Motor Works is an official contender of the Progressive Automotive X Prize.

illuminati-wall

Josh designed the logo and had painted it on the wall inside the garage. He needed to get the logo in electronic format so he could use it to get shirts printed or anything else he wanted to put the logo on.

illuminati-logo-illustrator

The challenge about the logo was the 3-D overlapping triangle and circle. To get that effect I created the circle and triangle in separate layers. Then I duplicated each element twice per each side, cropping out the overlaying section.

Find out more about Illuminati Motor Works.

Check out this video of Illuminati Motor Works.

The Get Well Greg Experience

Greg Tedder Artwork

I was reading on AutomotiveArtists.com’s forum, a post by Lemorris called “The Get Well Greg Experience”.

The “Get Well Experience” is about Greg Tedder. Greg is a artist who’s work in the automotive industry is legendary. I have always been impressed with all the reflections he puts into his artwork.

As it turns out, Greg has been in the hospital going through some not so fun surgeries. To help cheer Greg up while he goes through his hospital stay, artists have been asked to come up with drawings showing Greg’s car, known as “Frogger”.

The idea is to draw his car in any style you wish and it’s not about who can draw his car the best but about the automotive community coming together to show support for Greg during this time.

I chose to draw Greg and his car “Frogger” in the cartoon monster style.

Frogger

I first looked at the reference images posted in the forum.

Frogger Photoshop

I chose the side view to do and using Photoshop, I shorten the car some and made the back wheels of his car look like they were burning rubber.

Frogger Illustrator

After getting the car shaped the way I wanted, I brought the image into illustrator and started drawing it in vector line art.

Greg Tedder Pencil Sketch

Once the car was finished I then needed to sketch out Greg as a cartoon monster. I printed the car artwork out on an ink-jet printer and then using a pencil I started sketching.

Greg Tedder Images

I looked at the images posted and then found another image of him on a site wearing a white hat. Greg has certain distinguishing features like glasses and a beard that help when drawing in this style. I used a digital camera to get the sketch back into the computer so I could start drawing over it with Illustrator.

Greg Tedder Illustrator

Everything came together quickly at this point. I used layers in Illustrator to move certain elements around such as putting his arm is on a different layer so that I could draw the shadow of his arm on top of the car.

Greg Tedder Close Up

At the last minute I decided to add a drop shadow behind the whole design to help give it a “decal” type of look. All-in-all I like how the final art turned out and I hope Greg does too! Get well Greg!!!!

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?

1967 Maserati Ghibli Artwork

1967 Maserati Ghibli

I just finished this artwork of a Maserati Ghibli. I like the Ghibli because of it’s long low shape and it’s shark-like front end. Below is a quick video that will help give you an idea of what I am talking about.

The Maserati Ghibli was styled by Giorgetti Giugiaro and debuted in 1966 at the Turin Motor Show.

Under the hood Maserati used a detuned version of its quad-cam V8 racing engine. The engine used dry sump lubrication, which meant that the oil is held in a separate tank and pumped around the engine.

1967maseratighibli-details

For more information about the Maserati Ghibli check out Wikipedia.

Creating Vector Artwork on a Budget

Want try your skills creating cool vector artwork but don’t want to spend a lot of money on software to get started? Try taking a look at this posting I found called “20 Vector Graphics Editors Reviewed“. Some of the software listed is free to download!

I use Adobe Illustrator to create my artwork but I have done a little work with Inkscape, which is on the list. What vector programs have you tried?

1949 Cadillac Club Coupe Artwork

This is artwork I created of a 1949 Cadillac Series 62 two-door Club Coupe, also called a Sedanette. I started this piece at home, but ended up doing most of the vector line art while traveling on the road in California.

1949 Cadillac Artwork

The Cadillac Sedanette is a beautiful car with a striking fastback body design. This fastback design is what inspired me and so naturally it became the focal point of the piece. Below are some various images to show you some of the detail.

1949 Cadillac Artwork Details

Some interesting facts about the 1949 Cadillac Club Coupe is that about 7,515 were made and they sold for $2,966 each. Maximum speed was 100 mph and gas mileage around 12 to 20 miles per gallon. The Cadillac Motor Division was given Motor Trend’s first “Car of the Year” award in 1949. Another interesting item is that the gas filler on these cars are hidden under left tail light.

Due to the long low look of these cars, they make great subjects for customizing. Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top used a 1949 Cadillac Club Coupe for his customized car called “CadZZilla”. You can see CadZZilla near the end of the “Double-Back” video below, from the movie “Back to the Future 3”.

Posters of the 1949 Cadillac Club Coupe artwork can be found on my main art site. See my other Cadillac artwork which includes “Fins – 1960 Cadillac“, “1958 Cadillac” and a “1959 Cadillac“.

Cadillacs of all models are great subjects for Automotive Artwork. What Cadillac year/model inspire you to do create artwork?

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