Car Design Fetish

Yay!  How excited I was to see that the new Equinox was here.  The current one surely needs to die and get a new life.  Too bad the first things I saw was a Mercedes M-Class with a Chevy facelift.  Still the new styling is clearly an evolution from the current generation.

GM just took it a little to far M-Class and not enough Traverse.  The Traverse’ long DLO does a great job of thinning out the vehicle which the new Equinox could also use. Just when GM was starting to get some real clean designs this one seems to have gotten away from them.

The Traverse was a welcomed surprise from the other brothers and sisters of the Lambda tribe.  It is clean, classy and had some details that really worked for a Chevrolet.  This was a great vehicle to launch a new image for the brand.

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Could the automakers actually be branching out into new products to develop?  There may be some new and unexpected concepts being unveiled at this years auto shows.  Santa’s sleigh is definitley in need of a refresh and a few OEM’s (Ford, Rolls, Bentley and Nissan) have done a few sketches to show how they would influence it.  CAR magazine asked these comapnies to put their thoughts on paper.  Here are a couple of their ideas…….

Check out the rest of the concepts at CAR Magazine.

Well here is it ladies and gents, the 2009 Rendered Hope Charity Calendar. Inside you will find sketches and artwork from design professionals in the Automotive Industry. This calendar is a showcase to the designers who make our car culture what it is.  Each month includes the designers name, place of work, bio and sketch.  Designers participated from many companies such as General Motors, Ford, Johnson Controls and Hot Wheels.

The best part of this calendar is that 100% of the proceeds are being donated to The Detroit Children’s Hospital. The money raised will purchase Hot Wheels for all the kiddies. The price is $25 which is not a lot to spend for 12 hot sketches and the gift of giving a child a toy that will making a forever lasting impression.

This will be a Limited Edition run so click on the image below for a ride to the CDf store, also check out our new line of fetish shirts!!

CDf would like to send a big Thank You to all the designers who submitted work, The Detroit Children’s Hospital, and Hot Wheels for working with us to provides sketches and toys.

Paintings that is!  So I thought I would  switch gears and show a quick speed painting tutorial.  Nothing too fancy….enough to get the idea across.  This digital illustration was created using Photoshop; reminiscent of the “Fast and the Furious” or EA’s “Need for Speed” series.

So there are a few elements to consider when creating a typical illustration.

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The folks over a Mini sure know a thing about marketing and the brand they are trying to sell.  More than what can be said about a lot of companies.  The new 2009 Mini Convertible has just shown its face and already there a slew of new advertisements about it.  As usual they are fun, witty and a pleasure to look at.  The car looks great too.

Here is one of the ads to check out and you can see some more as well as some sketches after the jump.  I guess what Mini is trying to say is….who cares if it is winter, suck it up, wear protection!

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Designers need 3 things to survive:  Water, sleep, and a good Wacom tablet.  Here’s a quick link to a great gathering of tips (over 40 of ‘em!) over at designmag.

The tutorials and tips cover portrait painting, concept art illustration, photo retouching, and several tips and hints, among others.  The resource includes tips for Photoshop, Painter, and even Illustrator, and provides a great little way to help improve our Wacomism.

[At Designm.ag via Core77]

I am all about naked, standard style bikes, and grew up on a dirt bike, so seeing this bike made my morning.  The new Aprilia Mana X is blending every style of bike possible.  Part street, part dirt, part scooter.  The bike is simple, compact and has a ton of detail.

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Sure we would all like to wake up Christmas morning to find a car like this waiting for us, but we all know that isn’t going to happen. Especially this year. Luckily CDf has the perfects gifts for every designer or aspiring designer. Maybe you need a little inspiration in these down times or some ideas to put your portfolio together. CDf has everything from books to DVD’s to tools for the trade, our online store has you covered.

Coming soon (like a few days) we are going to launch the first of hopefully many Car Design fetish Charity Calendar. We have begged, borrrowed and stole some sweet sketches coming from designers in the industry that will be put together into one limited run edition calendar. 100% of the proceeds will go toward buying Hot Wheels for the Children’s Hospital of Michigan. So get ready to tear down that “supercar” calendar for a new 12 month collection of automotive Sketch P*rn!

CDf Online Store

Take 1/3 Toyota Prius, 1/3 Chevrolet Volt, and 1/3 Honda Insight, combine them together in a giant mixing bowl, and what do you get?

The Privolsight.

Yeah, I know… not a catchy name by any means.  However, taking a few minutes at lunch while on a phone conference to jerry-rig the 3 vehicles into this unholy alliance of a beast can help a designer create a rebuttal to the nay-sayers at their insistence that these three cars are too close in design.

Well, on second thought…

Click the “read more” link to see the Privolsight and feel free to let me know how bad my Photoshop skills are.

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