Students may like this book for the nice images, but as far as technique and instruction goes “How to Illustrate and Design Concept Cars” falls flat.

When I was given the opportunity to review “How to Illustrate and Design Concept Cars”, a guide created to help automotive design fans draw cool cars, a realization struck me:  as a schooled designer I am very protective about who, what, and how automotive design should be taught to the masses.  I’m of the old school thought in that proper design training only happens in colleges or through rigorous and continual practice.  At least that was part of it, until recently.

With the proliferation of new media across the internet it is possible to receive ample training in the tools and techniques required to help sketch cars.  But, that’s where it stops.  Illustration and design are two very different things.  One can illustrate a car, but designing one requires a level of problem-solving that you can’t teach without human interaction.  Even though this book has “design” on the cover it primarily focuses on the techniques associated with sketching.  And, unfortunately, it misses the mark in that respect.

Vitals

Format: Paperback, 128 pages, 10.1″ x 8.1″, 200 pictures
ISBN: 978-1-84584-220-8
Publisher: Veloce Publishing
Author: Adrian Dewey
Pricing & Availability – £17.99 UK / $35.95 US

The author, Adrian Dewey, notes that the book is designed to be an “easy-to-follow guide” with “step-by-step advice” utilizing both analog and digital methods, such as markers and Photoshop techniques, to sketch and renders cars.  A heavy focus on tutorials forms the basis, with examples of hot sketches sprinkled throughout.  Featuring a variety of styles from loose to tight Dewey also managed to have fellow designers submit some images for ogling as well.

Positives

- The Basics: The basics of automotive illustration & sketching are here.  From perspective drawing, to wheelbase, to rendering colors and reflections Dewey does a good job of collecting some prerequisites and even goes into great detail to talk about a few and give examples.

- Analog & Digital: The book also contains a good variety of both hand-drawn and digital techniques.  The digital work (Photoshop especially) is broken out into its own section that discuses manipulation of vehicle photographs to create some neat aftermarket effects.

Negatives

- All over the place: The organization of technique within the book is a major flaw appearing almost arbitrary in the design process flow.  The sketching basics are grouped into just a couple of general sections, with too much time spent on specifics that are low on the list of “need-to-knows”.  Instead of a chapter dedicated to line weight and looseness in sketches, there is one for headlamps and another for radiators & grilles.  I noted that the basics were included, but only as footnotes within one chapter.  The rest is a parts bin of sketching that talks too much of minute details instead of the overall sketch.

- Bad examples:  The book has a second inherent flaw, one that is probably the biggest within its pages.  The example images associated along with the step-by-step process fail at showing proper technique.  For example, in a section about drawing wheels the very first image used has terrible perspective with wheels rendered completely out-of-whack — and in fact, almost every sketch has wheels and tires drawn in inaccurate perspectives.  While wheelbase length plays an important role early in the book far too many sketches are of misproportioned race and luxury cars.  Renderings are muddy and hazy, and often appear like complete overkill in an image.  It was hard to focus on the techniques being taught with so many miscues in image selection.

- Glitz over content: The book pushes hot sketches above all, even over fundamentals.  Unfortunately it takes itself too seriously to realize that it doesn’t need to show the most realistic rendering possible when all that is required is some linework and light shading.  This might make the readers with less experience to feel overwhelmed too quick with trying to fully render a car.

In Conclusion

I was disappointed with this book, as it doesn’t serve to help either new or experienced designers & artists all that well in teaching proper sketch techniques.  There is simply too much focus on flashy images and not enough on fundamentals that artists of all levels need to keep in mind.  Perhaps another editor’s eye may have helped to organize the information in a much more consumable way, as the layout and presentation of the content in the book is difficult to follow.  High school students may like this book for the nice images but as far as technique and instruction goes, “How to Illustrate and Design Concept Cars” falls flat.