Learning How to Draw Cars

A reference page for anyone interested in learning to draw cars. The best books, DVDs and free online resources for developing good foundation skills and learning professional car drawing techniques.

As with every skill, the essential factor for learning how to draw cars is practice, but it is also very important to have reliable reference materials that can help to develop solid foundations.

In this page we report the most important, high quality resources, both free and not, that focus specifically on teaching how to draw cars using traditional media.

We are not reporting links to car design schools – that you can find in our directory – nor resources on digital techniques, that will be covered separately very soon.

Free Car Drawing Tutorials

• Car drawing tutorials on Car Body Design – our database of tutorials is the best place to find free guides, videos and articles on how to draw cars. Since 2004 we collect every online resource that is worth mentioning.
  Admittedly, quality may vary, and the information can be sometimes not so easy to find, but if you take some time to go through the lists you’ll find some amazing knowledge without having to pay.
  Interesting related categories are Hand Drawing Tutorials, Industrial Design Sketching Tutorials and Car Digital Painting Tutorials.
• Driven Mavens – a blog by our friend Arvind Ramkrishna, which includes many free car drawing tutorials, written by Arvind himself and by Jason White, both specialized in traditional, analogue media and vintage/classic cars.
• DesignerTechniques – Even if all the tutorials hosted at DesignerTechniques are also listed on Car Body Design, we ‘d like to mention Allan MacDonald’s website as an excellent place to find car drawing tutorials written by professional designers. There haven’t been many updates recently, but it’s certainly worth a look if you haven’t visited it before.

Car Drawing DVDs

 

• How to Draw Cars Now – a very recent two-DVD set created by Driver Mavens’ founder Arvind Ramkrishna, who focuses on both traditional and digital media techniques. It includes nearly five hours of videos, an insert booklet and four ebooks. For more information you can refer to our exclusive, in-depthreview.
• Techniques of Scott Robertson 2: How to Draw Cars – a DVD released by The Gnomon Workshop where Scott Robertson explains his freehand perspective drawing technique. It can be considered as a companion to the Techniques of Scott Robertson 1: Basic Perspective Form Drawing introductory DVD. Both are currently available in The Gnomon Workshop‘s store and library.
• The Techniques of Harald Belker 1: Introduction to Car Design and Drawing – Another DVD by The Gnomon Workshop, this time presented by concept designer Harald Belker, who shares his approach to quick sketching, design strategy, styling tips and to finalize a design direction.

Car Drawing Books

• How to Draw Cars the Hot Wheels Way – another title by concept designer Scott Robertson, who goes through his perspective/draw-through drawing method, in this case applied to fun concepts for toy cars. A very nice and affordable title, ideal for getting started.
• H-Point: The Fundamentals of Car Design & Packaging – When drawing a car, you can’t ignore the engineering behind it. This book – developed as a supporting material for ACCD’s Transportation Design Course – is quite unique in that it presents information on the layout, ergonomics and packaging of vehicles, not easily findable elsewhere.
• How to Draw Cars like a Pro – written by Hot Rod designer Thom Taylor, focuses on muscle and vintage cars and several different drawing/rendering styles. The second edition of the book features all-new illustrations and includes chapters on digital drawing.
• How to Design Cars like a Pro – a very well-known title among car designers and design students, the book by Tony Lewin is not purely about drawing cars: in addition to a number of drawing tutorials, it provides an in-depth look at modern automotive design, and features interviews with reknown designers, analyses of design trends and studies of individual models.

Car Drawing Workshops and Courses

• CGMA/CGMW Vehicle & Mechs Master Classes (online) – As with the other classes offered by CGMA (Computer Graphics Master Academy), this class focuses on design for the entertainment industry. The Master Class, which costs $599, is currently filled to capacity, but it is possible to purchase a past edition as a set of video lectures taught by John Park in the CGMW website for $30.
• FADU rendering workshops (Buenos Aires, Argentina) – organized by FADU (Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo) and taught by designer Christian Palladino, these annual workshops have a cost in the $230-$260 range and offer beginner, intermediate and advanced levels. For more information you can also check our previous posts.