Striving for Realism

Going for realism isn’t usually my goal when creating art generally, for the most part I’d like it to look a bit more spontaneous, alive and well… rough.

This one however was an exception.

My aim with this drawing was to do whatever I can* to make it look realistic with the notion that from that point I can then hopefully learn lessons along the way. And also learn how to manipulate those tools later on to control special effects or adapt to suit whatever creative “bent” takes my fancy. After all, Picasso started off with some truly beautiful realistic portraits before he started sticking noses coming out the side of heads.

This was drawn with Procreate and is completely digital from start to finish, including the initial sketches.

Now you may think “ah well, it’s easier with digital” and you’d be right in terms of colour mixing and blending, but it takes me at least twice as long and potentially 3-4 times longer than if I’d painted it with the wet stuff.

I doubt I could recreate this on canvas but there are more similarities than you might expect. Procreate has layers, well so do my paintings, it’s very rare that you’ll see an area on my painting that hasn’t got another layer or two underneath.

The one big thing though of course is the Undo function. You don’t have an Undo when the brush splatters the wrong colour or goes in the wrong place. And as mentioned above * do whatever I can – so I did use the Undo, I played around with filters, I used various brushes (I haven’t delved into the world of custom brushes yet) and created several different versions before I was happy with this one. It still isn’t finished though, expect this car in another guise at some point…

Sketching up

Finessing the lines and adding some detail areas. Then rough-shading for the shadows.

A significant time later with the digital airbrush

Wheel and brake details, the colour is a separate layer so I can repaint the car quickly,

Those door shading and reflections took aaaages. Very happy with the mirror.

On the real car there’s a circular cut-out here. An ideal spot for my logo 🙂

The “almost” finished article with a bit of background effect and ground shadow.

In case you’re wondering, the car is a 2018 Porsche 911 Turbo S.

Whilst everything you see was drawn I used several photo references to keep an eye on the details, proportions, etc.

I also decided to add the “turbo S” script up the side and also optioned the glass roof for myself, it’s my car and the (virtual) cost was reasonable. The colour was my own choosing as well – I doubt Porsche have that as a colour option, just be thankful it’s not another purple one. It was for a while… just can’t resist trying it 😊

It wasn’t their most sporting model of the 991 generation cars but for me unless you’re going on track then this was the best road version they made. Evo magazine recorded 0-60 in 2.6 seconds and it has a 205 mph top speed. It’s a four-seater and even has very good luggage space !!

If anyone out there wants to swap a real one for a painting let me know, I’m very much up for that 😎