How to Draw a Race Car

Drawing race cars can be both fun and challenging for beginning artists. There are many types of race cars, each presenting specific challenges to the beginner. These challenges can help to hone a beginning artist's drawing skills. Some newer race cars have modern, sleek lines, while other, older cars have traditional lines and edges. Learning to draw any type of race car is easy once you understand the basics of capturing body style and shading for dimension.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Sketch pencils
• Sketch pad
• Gum eraser
• Race car photo (optional)

1. Use a reference photograph if you aren't good at drawing from memory. Decide on the angle of your drawing. You may want to draw the car from a side profile; you might want to draw the car with the front facing you, with the body at a slight angle. This angle is ideal because you can include both the front of the car and its side in the same drawing. You'll have to pay close attention to proper perspective if you draw from this angle. It might be helpful to draw two light horizontal lines as guides to help keep your perspective.

2. Begin with the front of the car. Use a hard pencil for this step, to keep the lines light. The front of your car is going to take up more space toward the lower horizontal guide, and the side of the car will taper off at an angle toward the top guide. Sketch the front of the body of the car, shaping only the outline. You'll add the detail work later on.

3. Draw the side profile of the car. Keep your pencil on the paper and pay attention to your reference photo as you draw the lines. Pay attention to the angles of the lines as you form them. Add the basic shape of the tires now, but save the shading for later.

4. Add your detail work to the front of the car. Switch to a softer, darker pencil lead to add lines to the fender area of the car and to deepen and shade those lines. Move down the side profile and sketch the door in place. Draw the lines and shade them to give the side of the car the effect of light shining on it. If your drawing is going to be black and white, deepen the lines that will bring out the detail; then add your overall color to the body.

5. Sketch in the dimension to your tires. Thicken them with a soft, darker lead. Use a lighter shading to draw in the rims, then use your eraser to blend the lead and to add lighting effects to the rims for a chrome look. This can be done by lightly erasing and smudging the pencil shading.

6. Finish your drawing by adding a race car logo or flame design to the side profile. Use a soft pencil to draw the flames, then use short side strokes with your pencil at an angle to deepen the color of the area inside the flames. This allows you to give the flames a color variation from the chassis shading.

References

• How to Draw Cars