Photoshop
John A. Frye uses just a single brush to transform his messy thumbnail into a bold and colourful hard-surface creation
In this workshop I’ll guide you through my workflow of essential and logical steps to creating a clear and impactful illustration of a futuristic vehicle. The fundamental differences between illustrating hard-surface design or vehicle illustrations versus human, animal or other natural forms will become clear.
A major part of what makes my illustration work distinctive is careful consideration of the silhouette of the form, purposeful application of value contrast, and bold colours. A viewer-first approach to the legibility of the design, attractiveness of the image, and details that draw in the audience are all essential ingredients of a successful illustration that sells the design’s intentions. I’ll also help you to understand the order of my operations during the process, which starts with nailing down perspective to ensure the vehicle feels as though it exists in a 3D space.
You may be surprised how simple my Photoshop process is, and much can be achieved using a single brush for the entire illustration. You don’t have to use every tool in a software application to produce impactful and realistic illustrations. My process of drawing is similar to sketching with coloured pencils on paper, but comes with the benefit of using layers and the undo button!
Hopefully this workshop will open your mind to the potential to render shiny, colourful and realistic hard-surface vehicles by practising and building off the fundamental elements of my illustration process explained here.
1 Be happy with your thumbnail
It’s important to ideate spontaneously, but still iterate thoughtfully on paper or digitally until you arrive at a sketch that grabs you as a messy thumbnail. The silhouette of the vehicle should be playful. While this design is a cube, the orange background dances around the shape with carved out and protruding geometries. You don’t need the details finalised yet, but the overall shape should be distinctive and clear.
2 Lock into 3D space
This is the ‘eat your vegetables’ part of the piece; it might not be exciting, but perspective construction is essential for a solid-looking vehicle. Creating a three-axis pe
