Vintage Race Car Drawings: W154 Mercedes Benz Silver Arrow
If Vintage Race Car Drawings is your fancy then you are in luck! I absolutely love the old 40-60’s grand prix race cars! If you haven’t seen any of my previous grand prix paintings, be sure to check out my gallery which showcases 50-60’s grand prix race car digital paintings.
Now on with the sketch. This happens to be a V12 500 hp 1939 W154 Silver Arrow Mercedes Benz. MB and the Auto Union GP racing cars were called “Silver Arrows” by the press and what a sweet name it is!
Let’s talk about the actual sketch. I used a reference photo (naturally) and decided to take on the approach of drawing directly with markers. You’ve noticed in the past that I have used sharpie markers before and I still continue to use them. However, in this example I decided to sketch with a set of warm grey markers. I start off with a 20 % marker and then build to around 60% and leave it at 60%? Why? Because roughing out the initial sketch with a lighter tone marker helps to check my proportions and make any corrections if needed. I also feel more at ease when doing it this way.
You have read in several of my posts how fearful one can get when they go with a darker marker because once the line is set, then it’s difficult to hide when you make a mistake. So I like to sort of build up my tones which will also help me to “see” the progression and understand where I need darker values. Now leaving the sketch at 60% grey is also sort of unfinished as I would still need to add darker tones to finish the drawing.
I decided to leave this out because I was hoping to come back in and start to outline the sketch in pen to give it a tighter and technical look. Comment below if you would like to see a demo of this. Thanks for watching. Just remember, I BELIEVE you can all do this. Put your mind to it and just try to get to work.
Sketch Notes:
1. Start off with light grey markers such as 20%. Doesn’t matter whether you use a “cool” or “warm” grey marker. I used warm.
2. Layout all your initial perspective lines with the lighter tones.
3. Start to flesh out the drawing by quickly adding in your wheels and body. Make sure that as you go about this process, you have a nice photo reference and ensure you “grid” out your paper from the start so you can measure the details accurately. If you use a grid, make sure the grid is scaled correctly to your paper size and grid BOTH the original drawing and paper you are using to draw the sketch on.
4. Once you are comfortable with the overall drawing, you can start to darken up your lines by increasing the value of your marker. If you started with 20%, move up to 30% and then 40%. I ended the sketch with 60%.
5. Finishing touches end up with “indicating” details and such as the tires. The faster you can indicate the details, the better it is for you.
By the way, if you would like to understand more about Sketching Techniques, be sure to download our new Ultimate Sketching Techniques Guide! You just need to click on the “get started” button.
Hope you enjoyed this technique!
Arvind
