This where I ended up with this piece, which is nowhere near done. Its just far enough along to move on to some of the pages I haven't worked on at all.

I find looking at a page in place is more helpful than staring at it within Illustrator. Because of the way Indesign looks after linked files I can keep updating the image automatically. Once something starts to click I just keep flashing back and forth between Illustrator and Indesign, updating the page every few minutes. Then I'll export a pdf with a full bleed and slug, just to see how it all hangs together.

Done as a place holder, pressed for time, just need to get stuff down.

I went out to breakfast with my brother and had a long talk. It was good. Came to some serious revelations which are as follows.

1. Not all the good ideas are taken.
2. I'm in serious trouble if I get complacent with this project.
3. Pinstriping is a good idea.
4. Porsche is better than BMW
5. Brilliant things are created by unreasonable men because nice people are too busy being nice than they are being good so they never get to be really good.

Showed him the WIP and he was very receptive. When he says something I always take notice because I know he's basically a bastard and has a nasty habit of telling you exactly what he really thinks.

Two weeks and 3 days.

I feel like pissing blood at this point. I lost an entire day between work and my g-friend getting into a vehicular altercation in Studio City. So between the deadlines I have for other projects (important ones that pay) and standing at the side of the road waiting for a tow truck (which never showed) I missed out on about 6 hours work.

This is a sketch for the devil page based on the new design. Yes, that is a pint of Guinness.

Realisticically I have to admit I'm behind and slipping further. Between the pages that needed to be redesigned and the lost days, I'm starting to think that I won't make it.

Oh well, nothing to do but to keep going and see where I end up. Life (and art) is a journey after all.

Two weeks and four days left, I'm sweating bullets at this point.

So I'm running out of time fast, last night I realised that I needed a couple of extra pages along with the re-profiled pages I needed based on the new designs. I'm trying to work on the car pieces as much as I can to put off doing the devil pages too soon.

I'm on notepad number ten at this point, most of which are filled with crappy little shorthand doodles like these. I've always said that I can't draw for toffee, but I can scribble like a fucking bugger.

Theres at least two page spreads I can use in here and I'm looking forward to getting them started, maybe later. Busy day today, I hope I get some time later to push forward with the book.

Okay, I'm going to post a few steps from a drawing I worked on today. Its fairly straightforward as I think you'll see. I've included the only sketch that I ever drew for the piece to show you where it started.

Step One: Provide sketch
Step Two: Pose and render out models
Step Three: Trace (In a bright color, its easier to see) the image
Step Four: Dump the placed jpegs or whatever I was using
Step Five: Start to assemble lines into groups, groups into layer.
Step Six: Get busy refining the lines, adding texture and color etc.
Step Seven: Polish the shit out of it.

Just a note, I haven't done step seven on this image yet. Tell the truth I've barely done step six but its well on its way. The only real difference between this and the sketch is that I moved the Devil's car up to place the text below rather than above as originally imagined.

Just another note. I call it tracing, but it only starts like that. Once I have a solid geometry down it evolves into drawing as you get further and further into the finishing details.

This is just a brief look at the way I build these pictures. The models were posed and traced. Modifications, especially to the wheels, were made and then the elements were seperated into 2 layers. The Lotus was transfered to the toop layer and the Auto Union was left on the bottom.

I'll make two more layers before the image is finished. The very top layer will have smoke elements etc while the very bottom layer will hold the background elements.

I'm working on a pose for the devil in this one that was inspired by Jay Leno shooting through Ventura Blvd. and up Coldwater Cyn. in a Bentley Blower. It was magnificent. Can't figure out why that guy isn't deaf.

Just posing out some models for some of the sketches I did last night.

Two weeks and five days left to go.

I had a little trouble trying to get some pieces finished yesterday so I switched and moved onto this one. Its actually inpired by a photo of Jimmy Clark.

Got too much to do. I sketched some ideas for a couple of pages that weren't working last night. I'll scan them later and see if I can make it work.

On this piece I wanted a real sense of movement and energy. I came up with a sixth rule that I'm not going to bother writing down but its about how to draw two different cars from two different periods in racing. The problem is that each needs to be drawn differently and yet appear on the same page as a cohesive image. Tough eh?

I can really feel the hammer falling now. Technically I'm less than half way through my alloted time, but that time slips past so fast that its frightening. More later...

Again, these pieces aren't finished, they're just far enough along to abandon for the moment so I can concentrate on stuff that hasn't even been worked out yet.

Its just past lunch. Trying to come up with interesting contrast in lighting and texture between the two cars. This still needs a lot of decoration and finishing but its a good start.

Rethought, or at least reimagined the devil charactar and moved him to a more sculptural form. Its going to be reminiscent of the drivers from the pre-war period.

I had gotten myself into trouble on a shot where I'd used some reference from what turned out to be the Indy500. It turns out that the cars of the period were asymetrical. Now you americans probably know this as fact. But for me it was a revelation and I had to go to Autobooks in Burbank CA to verify. They have a lot of Lotus Indy car models from the early through mid sixties. Sure enough the suspension on the right hand side was longer, and the left hand side was all tucked right up against the car. I guess the left side was the weighted side and the right side is the stability side that crawled up the banked curve.

Two weeks and six days left I think.

Okay, so I only got half of what I wanted to do done yesterday, but I did have a couple of revelations that will help me move forward. Its all about style, and the two cars need to be approached with different styles and yet still match. I ended up re-composing the scene to make it work and I feel a lot better about the page as a result.

I also went back to the drawing board last night to work on a few spreads that I thought might not be working as well as they could. I think I've found some ideas I can use and I'll post some sketches later.

Okay, 3 weeks left and a lot to do.

This is the piece I want to do next. This is the final pencil (marker) sketch before I hit Illustrator and start to break it down. Again, I'm going to leave a lot of the decoration until later.

If anyone wants to grab these and try their hand at a little digital pintstriping I'd be more than happy to incorporate the best of whats done. I'm entirely new to the concept of the pinstripe and I'll never learn what I need to know before the deadline.

If you see a page you'd like to try maybe you should just grab the image and put your mark down. Drop me a line and show me what you've done. I'll do a full post about what I might need and maybe you pinstriping geni out there might show me a thing or two.

Flickr Retro Kid

Can's seem to get blogger to work this morning so I'll post this (link) to the Flickr retro pool. Theres some fantastic artwork and page layout in there and its well worth a look. When you're designing pages to tell a story its not a bad idea to have a look at whats been done before. Don't forget, even if the books themselves were forgetable there was some formidable artwork done for these things by the likes of Mel Crawford.

This is the top layer from the previous spread. Why layers? Because complex pieces in Illustrator are almost impossible to structure and keep track of if everything is on the same layer.

So group objects to keep them together and layer pages so that you maintain control of all the elements. I needed to be able to seperate the cars anyway because my business partner and I want to turn some of the designs into T-shirts for those car loving Formula 1 freaks out there.

Might even do a limited edition print if theres enough demand. If theres any particular piece that you'd like to see as a print then drop me a line.

Three weeks left. This is where I start to panic. The work is going well but I went back to the drawing board last night to try to identify the pages that were not working.

The result is 4 pages that need to be redesigned either partly or entirely. Still trying to aim for at least a finished page a day. We'll see how that holds up over time.

Oh yeah, I want to say thanks to Autobooks on Magnolia in Burbank. Hiram and Tim pretty much set me up with all the reference material I have and I couldn't have even started with their help.

So, its getting late on monday. This piece took all day, it just went on and on. This is the first time I've tried to detail the cars and I have to say that the 1/18th scale model is invaluable, not just for placement, but for getting the flair down nice like.

Its 2.30 on a monday. Too much to do. I figure I need to finish one page a day to make my deadline, which is just about do-able.

A word on the pinstriping front. I think I may finish the pages to a certain standard, print them out and do pinstriping on the printed pages. Trying to design the striping on the art is counter intuitive so I need to rethink my method. This way I get to ignore areas where I intend to pinstripe which allows me to move on quickly to something else.

This piece will have pinstriped flames on it, I'm thinking.

3 weeks and 1 day left.

Spent the weekend rethinking designs and pages and doing a slew of new sketches.

Forgot to post this earlier. Its my Lotus 25 model posed and rendered and printed and then scribbled over with a marker to get a somewhat final sketch for the page spread. This way I get a solitdity that is hard to achieve the way I normally draw.

3 weeks and 2 days left to go.

Concentrating on getting some of the big work done on a number of spreads at once. This is a quick progression from the original sketch at the top, to the posed model and then onto the final piece in illustrator. The piece isn't finished but I just like to get it to a reasonable stage before I move on to another page.

I'll add the decoration (pinstriping) at the end. Still having a think about how best to use that.