The rendering will be created directly over the original sketch. When starting these kind of renderings I quickly create several paths and layers, and name the paths and layers, base color, windows, shadow, details, wheels, etc.
I create a colored background and add a mid-tone red background for the car: it is a average tone between the lightest and the darkest red that will appear in the rendering.
I apply the dark parts on the car using a darker-toned red from the palette. I do this mostly by freehand, but extra paths can be useful in order to achieve sharper edges.
The shadow is added working with the shadow layer created at the beginning. Using these layers is useful for modifying the design at a later stage. The value of the colors, shadows, lighting, etc. can be easily increased by duplicating that specific layer.
After the shadows, I create the sky reflection and the ground reflection on the car using a soft brush. For the ground reflection I apply the same texture used for the background - which will be seen at the end. I often hide the background layer to focus more on the car.
The windows and other details are added using the path tool. The highlights are added with a bright red - from the previous red palette - and white, to create some contrast.
Additional details are invented and created directly during the rendering process, so that they can pop up or disappear at any time.
The final touches include additional highlights and the wheels, created using the path tool and freehand brush-strokes.
Finally I reveal the background previously hidden. It was easily created by applying a standard filter - in this case the 'Relief' filter - on the background color, and distorting it using a Perspective transformation.
The texture is covered with a darker color in the distance in order to create a sense of depth.
The final step - not always present - consists of some quick overall adjustments of colors - using Color Balance and Selective Color - and contrast - using Curves.
Koen Balthazar is a 31 years old freelance illustrator and amateur car designer from Belgium. He works with Photoshop, Autocad, Solidworks.
(Image Courtesy: Koen Balthazar)
