Marker paper rendering step-by-step tutorial #1

[Michael D. Nicola]

Alright, I've been meaning to do this one for a while. The last two marker paper renderings I did in class turned out like crap, and I want to redo them both. I just finshed redoing Matt's Auto Union racer from the "Functional Vehicles" assignment, and I decided to take photos while I worked and post them as a step-by-step tutorial.

So here we go - I really hope it helps, because the final product turned out ALOT better than I thought!

[Michael D. Nicola]

OK, you've all seen me do a TON of ideation sketches by now so I've decided to skip that step and go ahead and just trace my ideation to marker paper and start there.

For those of you who don't remember, during our February 14th class (Valentine's Day), I used one of Matt's ideation sketches of an Auto Union racer as my demo. As I mentioned in the first post, it turned out like crap so I wanted to redo it, so I did. Here's the resulting sketch and what we are starting with for this tutorial:

The car itself is redesigned quite abit from what I did in class. Frankly, I found that original sketch kinda boring. Besides, it had open wheels, and I really don't like rendering open wheels cars so I wanted to cover them up too.

There's nothing special here by the way. Just black Prismacolor Verithin on marker paper (I used the Borden & Riley pad, but the Bienfeng 360 would be just as good). Obviously, I used my elipse templates and french curves - I wanted to do a good job on this one.

[Michael D. Nicola]

OK, now that we're happy with the linework we start the dreaded marker work. I know, I know, this still scares alot of you. The only thing I can say is that it's just paper - if you don't like the way it's going, trace over your sketch and try again (that's part of the beauty of translucent marker paper).

Before you start, decide where you light source is going to be. Once you've decided this, determine where you shadows will be and where your 'hot spots' (lightest areas) are. In this case, the light source is in front of the car, on the driver's side.

One technique that may help is to take another sheet of marker paper, quickly (and I mean quickly, don't spend alot of time doing this) trace over your sketch, then indicate where your light and dark areas would be based on where your light source is. Then, place it aside and use it as a guide to help you render your final drawing.

Once that's determined, take your lightest colour and start putting in your horizon line and colour to the rocker panel. The colour I started with is Cool Grey #3.

You may notice that some areas look darker than others (close to the horizon line and down near the bottom of the car). This is done by just going over areas with the same colour marker (I swear, I didn't use a darker marker).

Once this is done, we move on to the next colour.

[Michael D. Nicola]

Now, take your next darkest colour marker and start to further darken areas like the horizon line and the bottom of the vehicle. Don't go too crazy here - you've probably already saturated the paper when you used the first colour, putting more is just going to make the marker bleed.

For this one, I used Cool Grey #4.

[Michael D. Nicola]

Now we apply the darkest colour we are going to use. And as above, go easy with this one. Again, you've probably put alot of colour on the paper by now, so we don't want too much bleeding. We're only looking to punch out those really dark shadow areas, like the bottom of the car, any air intakes, etc...

For this step, I used Cool Grey #5.

[Michael D. Nicola]

This is not normally a "step", but for this rendering I've included it. The reason is because on this car there's a couple of sections that I've made a slightly different colour than the main colour of the car. In this step, I applied that different colour to these areas.

The rear of the car is done in Basic Grey #1, as well a couple of over areas around the car (windshield wiper, front intakes, side mirror trim). Because these parts are a matt finish, I pretty much just covered them with colour.

[Michael D. Nicola]

Now here's something you haven't seen me do much in class. And the reason is because it takes a LONG time! But for these tutorials, I have nothing but time so I don't mind showing them.

At this step, I started to concentrate some effort on the interior. I just used Warm Grey #1 here, and started to colour the seats, I.P. (or dashboard), and steering column. Remember your light souce when your doing this - the same rules apply in the interior as the exterior with respect to light and shadow areas.

I should mention, if any of your renderings don't have an interior (or you just don't want to show one) then you can just skip the next few steps.

[Michael D. Nicola]

More interior work. This time I just used my Warm Grey #3 to start darkening some shadow areas.

[Michael D. Nicola]

Using my Warm Grey #5, Redwood, and Burnt Umber markers I just finished up the interior in this step. The majority of my concentration was on the shadow areas again and really darkening these up. Areas like the space behind the seats, under the I.P., etc.. are all fair game. I used the Redwood and Burnt Umber to put in some wood trim on the I.P. (hey, how says a race car can't be a little luxurious?). I also used my Warm Grey #4 to finish off the center console area.

Now that the interior is done, we turn our attention back to rendering the exterior.

[Michael D. Nicola]

And now the fun begins! Here we apply our main pastel colour to our cores. As you've already seen me do many times, take your chalk pastel and your knife and make yourself a littler pile of chalk powder. Then using either your Webril Pad, Kimwipes, tissue paper, cotton balls, etc... apply the pastel. Again, remember your light souce - the closer to your light source, the less colour you will see (these are the "hot spots"), the further away from the light source the more colour.

And please keep in mind that PASTELS ARE FOR CORES ONLY!!! Don't coat your drawing as if your speading peanut butter!!! If you're in doubt use less pastel. Remember - less is more.

The colour I used on this rendering is Prismacolor Nupastel 259-P Cool Deep Grey. I found this colour to be extremely dark, so I put it on very lightly and slowly built it up to what you see here.

[Michael D. Nicola]

Now my favourite part - applying some magic blue! now we get to make the drawing sing alittle.

For those of you who've been asleep since the beginning of the course, what I call Magic Blue is actually Prismacolor Nupastel 244-P Blue Violet.

We apply Magic Blue the same way as we did our main colour, only this time we use VERY LITTLE in comparison. Magic blue is just an accent - not a solution to a screwed-up rendering. Apply magic blue to all cores that face your light source. In the case of this drawing, it's primarily applyed on the driver's side of the car, all along the top surface, and along the driver's side where that BIG core is (it's hard to tell in the photo, but trust me it's there). It's also on the pods where the exhausts exit and alittle on the big air intake on top.

NOTE: Those of you who are really observant may have noticed that in the above drawing the car has some dark marker work along the side window that extends into the body. However, in the previous step the drawing didn't have it. The reason is because I simply forgot to put it in originally. Normally, this marker work would be put in just after finishing the interior in Step #8, but it's not too late to put it in now.

[Michael D. Nicola]

Now we're ready to apply some white pastel to help make our car shine. Remember what I said a few classess ago? Your lightest light goes next to your darkest dark. So in the case of this car, I put some white pastel just above the horizon lines on the body and on the glass, as well as along the top of the car next to the core (because it's facing our light source).

Notice how the glass now starts to give a translucent look. Wherever the white pastel is you get just a hint of the interior. Now the car is starting to look shiny.

[Michael D. Nicola]

Now that the white pastel is done, all that's needed is to spend some time on the details. Things like the head lights, the front intake openings, the rear exhaust, the rear tail lights, the wheels and tires, and finally applying a shadow under and behind the car just finishes this rendering off right. I also added a few small dabs of white gouache to a few small areas, just to really make this drawing shine. They are hard to see in this picture, but you can see them in the details pictures below.

Here's the final product:

I know I've skipped a few steps by jumping to the final product, but I had to in the interest of time. This rendering took me alot longer than it should have, but I am quite pleased with the final results. Besides, there where no tricks for the detail stuff - some black marker for the intakes, headlights, reflections in the exhaust, and the shadow under the car, some ruby red and maroon for the rear tail lights (I applied some red pastel for that blurred motion effect), some chromium yellow and chromium orange for the side and front marker lights, some cool grey #3 to #5 for the tires, a little pastel work on the wheels and some light blue and magic blue on the exhaust to give them that chromed look.

And yes, I will be bringing this to next class for all of you to see.

[Michael D. Nicola]

Here's some detail pictures of the final product:

Rear Details


Top Details


Front Details