To Daytona - thanks!

Tom, I didn't realise I was so neat until you mentioned the 'over-stroking', I didn't consciously try not to cover other ares, it just worked out that way. If you use a clean water wash first, the paint tends to go where you want it to, but small, detail areas don't seem to generate feverish brushwork!

My palette/s got pretty messy! I used heavy china palettes with five hemi-spherical depressions and five sloping recanguar depressions - fairly standard - but they got a bit expensive towards the end for such a simple piece of pottery. The moulded plastic ones were very light, I felt there was a chance you'd be chasing them around the desk. I used a few basic colours for nearly all the mechanical bits, unless - oh joy! - a car had some brightly anodized bits other than hose couplings. Jet black, zinc white, cerulian blue, yellow ochre and several warm greys, mainly #'s 3, 4 and 5. The grays were fantastic, but unfortunately Winsor and Newton started messing around, changing some, deleting most, and in the end I bulk-purchased #'s 4 and 5 just so I could carry on. Still got most, slowly hardening in the tubes, no doubt...

The tyres were greys 4 and 5 for the tread, 4, 5 and jet black for the sidewalls. Magnesium castings were greys 3, 4 and 5 with various tiny amounts,sometimes, of olive green, all black components were jet black and cerulian blue, from pure blue to pure black, with yellow ochre for the lower reflection, tone down with black. A small black tubular part would have the yellow and blue painted, then black and it all blended with a damp-wet brush, and if necessary more yellow, blue or black added to get the right effect. I can't claim to have got anything right first time without some luck! All you have to remember is not to overpaint an item that is still wet, or one bleeds into another, so paint something else in the mean time. For highlights on a black component I used blue with zinc white, then finally, if it needed it and it wasn't too wet, a process white 'sparkle'.

With a bit of thought and not many colours you can create a load of different shades and tints. Grey #4 and cerulian blue mixed gave an interesting colour...

I would add that hardly any part of the Lotus 79 sample is finished, I would have gone over the area changng odd bits and cleaning up towards the end - I was torn between finishing everything as I progressed, and covering as much as I could per session, then finishing. The latter approach normally won!



To my shame this was my desk! I do not pretend to be permanently neat except for the illustration itself. This is obviously during an airbrushing session, but it didn't look very different when brush-painting. The dimpled pint beer jug used for water was to remind me, not so much of what I was missing, but what I could look forward to! Funny how water-soluble paint can, given time, adhere to glass.

Alloisi!

Thank you, Tony! Alloisi, of course!

Wow! Thanks so much for the intensive, detailed explanation. Fascinating stuff. I like seeing your work space and I see no '"shame" in its arrangement and organization. There seems to be a common element among technical artists to have a chaotic work area in contrast to the insanely organised and clean final result of the illustration. My old studio was down in the depths of a storage room in our basement where I worked in total seclusion. This was not because of its location but simply that it was so crazy with waste elements from the result of painting that no mortal dared to approach me! Sometimes I worried about the situation and compared myself to the likes of some hideous beast that deserved to be banished from the normal world. I actually think the chaos was a sub-concious deliberate act on my part since I knew the resultant effect would yield privacy and allow total concentration which is so necessary for this kind of work.

I've always worked in a mess Well it starts off tidy, but day by day my workspace gets more congested with whatever I'm working with at the time. I've worked for a couple of bosses who despaired at my work method but eventually gave up trying to change me as generally I gave them what they wanted. When I first started working on race cars, my hands often had that built in grime which sometimes takes days to remove. They couldn't quite believe how I always turned out a clean piece of artwork with not a mark anywhere. I couldn't believe it myself sometimes!

Kneading dough for home-made bread is very effective at removing built-in grime! We nearly all - illustrators - seem to have similar traits. Comforting in a strange way...

We all seem to like a drink aswell

Never missing an opportunity to add some catalyst to my system.....I'll drunk tothat!

I'd like to thank all of you for the in depth discussion on how a drawing/technical illustration comes to being.

To be honest, I quote above the only phrase I really understand.

Well done chap! You have learned well. I believe the secret behind the success of a well-tuned technical illustrator is indeed the alcohol. Just like a well-tuned racing car needs fossil fuels to function properly, a technical illustrator without alcohol will not finish at the front of the pack.

Tom............While my illustration work is not "technical", I have a similar opinion. Living in Silicon Valley means that when I tell people that I draw "illustrations/cartoons", they look at me as if I have spoken some ancient & unknown dialect. After which, I feel a need to hang a bell from my neck & shout, "Unclean, Unclean". I am also happy that, while I cannot master Tony's talent, I have acheived equality regarding the working area ! As always, my thanks to all for insight into your creativity.
Cheers,
Steve

Not sure, but judging by page size and staple marks, this must have been a centre spread in an issue of Motor magazine.
Brian Hatton shows the results of Mike McCarthy and Peter Wright's investigation of how a Lotus 79 was "loaded" in a corner.

A close neighbour of mine will love this.
He owns quite a few Isos, a Rivolta as well as an Iso Rivolta IR01 DFV (ex F.Williams)

Thought this might be of interest. A modified Bugatti by Allington. Changes stipulated are brakes, wheels and shocks. Aside from the fact that I find the modifications unsettling there is something about this drawing that makes my eyes water every time I look at it. All things being subjective except when they're not, I guess I'll live with it.

Al

http://img263.imageshack.us/i/allingtonbugattitype35.jpg/

The cutaway is of the car that Jim owned at the time, sold before I met him. I assume the mods were as the car, I certainly feel that there is too much perspective, exacerbated by the positive front camber. He never used so much on subsequent drawings

Looking through some files here, if anyone has access to T&CC October 1989 pps88/89 and C&SC October 1993 pps70/71 there are Brian Hatton cutaways in colour of the fascinating Rover BS mid engined coupe. I have both pages of C&SC but there is a slight gap in the middle on the join, and only p89 of T&CC, giving about 3/4s of a rear 3/4 view. I can scan and send if anyone wants to try to stitch the 2 pages.
Roger Lund

My hand is raised Roger

Marc, I will scan and send tomorrow
RL

Another rendering of the General Purpose vehicle, albeit not of very good resolution.

By Gen Sateh? Is that the name? I can't quite make it out...

Same artist?

Mini Cooper by Giorgio Alisi



Ibsen

I found this one looking for something else. It's a Betti but i don't know which one.



Anywhere the same in good resolution?

Doesn't look like it to me, Ibsen.

Just found this ebay auction for a poster/print of a Shin Yoshikawa Abarth 750 Double bubble

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Fiat-Abarth...sQ5fAccessories

or http://tinyurl.com/yz9c98j

Cheers
Lee

Chevron B19 by Betti - Bruno or Giulio?



Ibsen

You can never be sure with the Betti brother !!
If I had to bet I would go for Bruno.

Roger sent me the scans, and here is the Rover PBS6 mid engined coupe by Brian Hatton.

It is only right that I note and applaud the excellent job which Marc has done on this. When the 2 halves were offerred up, the gap from the page edges was certainly 75% of the width of the n/s rear spring/damper unit vertically through the drawing, so Marc had to extract the equivalent section from the other magazine, a smaller picture, and scale it up prior to blending it in. An excellent job, well done.
Roger Lund

Kieft f3 500 from a very small image in the 1951 British Grand Prix programme. It is an Autocar production of a Vic berris drawing.
Actual size

Actual at 150%

Roger Lund

Thank you for the compliment Roger !
Thank you also for helping me out with great scans every so often.
I have dug up one.....which you may recall. You sent me the scans BEFORE Anders started this thread !!!
The Ford C100 by Terry Collins.

This was another one of those cutaways which had to be reworked from different sized scans from two magazines.

Another Ford C100 by Terry Collins



Ibsen

It is interesting to see this illustration here because I have got the original. It came from the Autosport and Motor archive collection. What puzzles me though is what is the odd piece of what looks like screwed up paper? Mine hasn't got that.

Hello terrance,
If you have clicked through the thumbnail and then click through the first image shack pic, you'll get the Rover full screen. Click that again and you'll get a large size pic.
Mouse the pic around you'll see that the publishers stuck a drawing (folded and crumpled) in the background, which shows the Rover in side and plan views.
Actually the pages Roger scanned for me also had some text and photos surrounding the cutaway, which I cleaned away to make it (the cutaway) come out better.
I left the drawing because I thought it gave a touch of..........something

On the back of the drawing which is on blue paper, it is quoted as being an Alvis-Rover.

That was purely a marketting ploy as Rover had only recently (1965) absorbed the bankrupt Alvis company

I just found this site yesterday, and am not quite sure how I missed it previously. I have been doing cutaways since I was 17 (not necessarily all of them being very good), but focused on drag racing and the Hot Rod subjects in the US. To find a site that actually has one of the guys who I admired most when I started to check around for these things in the '70s in here is really something. Of course, I have only been able to get through about 10 pages of the past posts at this point, and actually have a bunch of stuff that I need to get to, but this is really something.
Thanks for all the material here. Not sure how many new pieces that I have seen here, but I have something like 3500 automotive cutaways, and this board is going to significantly add to the identified collection.
Then, to hear about the process someone who is an actual artist, namely Tony Matthews; this really takes it over the top for me.
I think that I should have expected there to be a following for this art in England, as most of the material that I found that really represented the art originated with your group. We just got the spillover here.
And, as to training, does a couple of years of mechanical drawing count??? I used to get marked down because I was always doing the linework too dark, one of the things that has probably worked best for me in the real world.
I see the color work that a Tony Matthews and a few of the others have done, and see things that I have never even pictured myself doing beyond the lineart that I actually have done. Tony mentioned very early on that he could train someone to do this stuff, and I am probably as good an example of the trained monkey being able to create something, but the artistic ability that the "real" guys have shown just knocks me over.
Sorry, rambling, but had to get this in before I shut it down for the evening.
Tom West

Hi Tom --

I mentioned your great dragster cutaways from Drag racer magazine a while ago (post 1837), but did not post any since it would have violated copyright. Would you be willing to share them here?

Thanks for the plug on that particular drawing. Considering what is paid for those things over here, especially for publication with the magazines, it never would have gotten done without a commission deal. It also limits the style of the drawings as it isn't worth putting overly much of the shading and shaping that is used in the English style work. Certainly not worth doing color unless it is an advertising piece of some sort.
All of that said, I will include a file on the Force drawing here. Actually, the other two were redone, but not in time for the use in the mag, so I will do something with them to, just to set the record straight. Copy out the link below. The rest of my cutaway stuff, with the exception of a couple that are still being cleaned up are in the album there, as well. Let me know if this works, by the way.
Thanks again for the mention.
Tom West
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=3023...p;id=1282823678

Hi Tom - you say some nice things about my work, thanks - but I'm an illustrator, not an artist. My interest started with mechanical (technical in the UK) drawing, in fact drawing my own model aircraft plans. The first time I heard the words 'technical illustration' was when a friend's father - who happened to teach technical drawing and woodwork - saw one of my plans, and noticed that I had done a little perspective drawing of a particularly complex part of the model, just to clarify the shapes involved.

I liked adding colour, but I still think the purest form is line drawing, I started using colour because that was where the demand was. Unfortunately I can't see your work as facebook keeps rejecting my password, for a reson that doesn't make sense to me, I'll try again later. I may well have seen some examples, but drag racing is very much a minority sport in the UK, and doesn't get much coverage.

I'm not sure where technical illustration originated, Leonardo da Vinci certainly figures, amongst other achievements, but it seems to have passed its heyday - and as for interest in England you only have to look at the prodigious output by the Betti brothers to see what the demand was in Italy and surrounding countries! I didn't do more because the demand wasn't there. However, the passion shown on this thread is still surprising and wonderful, I'm still enthusiastic depite no longer illustrating, and every new post is great to read. Having spent today kneeling in mud, digging post holes up to my armpit in clay and flints, I rather miss the studio...

That is a really interesting question, and one I've not really considered before. I suppose it's when someone said "what's it going to look like"

I'm sure the Industrial Revolution helped, plus a couple of World Wars to move Technology forward.

Unfortunately Technology overtook us

Just a suggestion but those interested in a historical perspective, I don't think I intended a pun, of the art form may want to check out the book "The Art of The Engineer" by Baynes and Pugh. It's available through Amazon. Great text and illustrations done justice by the printing.

Al

Welcome new posters !!
Join in, contribute and enjoy !!
Serge Bellu's Renault RE25 full specs !

Hi Tom - you say some nice things about my work, thanks - but I'm an illustrator, not an artist. My interest started with mechanical (technical in the UK) drawing, in fact drawing my own model aircraft plans. The first time I heard the words 'technical illustration' was when a friend's father - who happened to teach technical drawing and woodwork - saw one of my plans, and noticed that I had done a little perspective drawing of a particularly complex part of the model, just to clarify the shapes involved.

I liked adding colour, but I still think the purest form is line drawing, I started using colour because that was where the demand was. Unfortunately I can't see your work as facebook keeps rejecting my password, for a reson that doesn't make sense to me, I'll try again later. I may well have seen some examples, but drag racing is very much a minority sport in the UK, and doesn't get much coverage.

Tony,
I had read your earlier posts here defining the Technical Illustration, and yourself. I am using my own definition, which should probably be adjusted to the environment here. I look at you guys who can take a board and actually draw this, and consider the process that I go through to recreate a car and find that there is much more talent involved in your work than mine, which is a construction more than anything else. Someone who can draw these things freehand as you guys do really impress me with the talent. I know a lot of guys here who have taken a shot at this stuff, and won't do a second cutaway. I also know that I seem to have them buffaloed into thinking I am doing something special, when I do much simpler layouts to show the chassis and physical part layout, without digging into the inside of the inside (like the engines) as is done in a lot of your work.
I guess that I have done a lot of other things along this line, like modelkit and diecast design and development, so I sort of mix it all together into one big soup of relatively similar but different activities, so it is enough to keep me interested, if nothing else.
Now, if it weren't for the fact that I have chosen to do cutaways in a land where everyone things it should be done in CAD so they can turn it around ... but it is tough to get them to pay to get a basic drawing done ...
Suppose that is part of the reason for stepping away from reliance on the illustration as a business. I know a few others over here who have done the same.
Anyway, this entire board has really cost me a couple of days, since I have done nothing but dig back through this thing since I got the link to it. Only about 30 more pages to dig though ...
Thanks for at least creating a hell of a forum for this stuff ... nothing close over here, at least that I know of.
Thanks for the inspiration with your work.
By the way, I am going to try to figure out how to get the image into the post. Is there some size restriction here to be able to put those things into the note without having them in that storage site? I have not figured out the secret. Just tried to pull up that Facebook Album page and it won't take it ... nuts.
Tom West

Here ia Jaguar E-Type by Porter

Just re-visited Seasalt's posting on page 44 of an "Auto Union p wagen" concept. Really like everything about the drawing, in fact it is a favorite. Tried to improve upon the unfortunate scan and patch job. Think it came out not bad as a subjective revision of a drawing of an imaginary car.

Al



http://img25.imageshack.us/i/autounionpwagen.jpg/

Hi there, I am new to this forum, my reason for registering was this discussion which caught my eye regarding cutaway illustrations of cars; this has coincided with the launch of my website selling mostly my illustrations of cars cutaway. Theres not many in there at the moment but I hope to grow the list. Site is www.technicalartprints.co.uk
sorry for the advertising but i had to start somewhere and it seems there is a fondness for the type of illustration i am producing.

Matt Jennings

Good to see somebody doing it the "proper" way

!!!......?

Marc
Don't understand.
Al

Al, I think you may have missed Marc's post here.