Project - Wheels on Vehicles

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

inDrawing Basics

1.3K

Assignments 382

Downloads 5

Project - Wheels on Vehicles

Lesson by

Stan Prokopenko

in Drawing Basics

1.3K

Assignments 382

Downloads 5

Drawing wheels on vehicles is an excellent way to practice cylinders and reinforce what we've already learned.

Level 1

Draw a simple car, bus, RV, or truck focusing on the wheels.

Add a spare tire on the front or back to practice cylinders in different orientations.
Use photos for inspiration, not for direct copying.
Draw your vehicle from a slightly different angle than your reference to practice perspective construction.
Make vehicles toy-like, simplifying details and focusing on perspective.
Start with the side view silhouette in 3-point perspective, then extrude it.
Construct wheels by approximating square planes and drawing ellipses within. Give them thickness!
Experiment with the same vehicle from multiple angles or different types of vehicles.

Level 2

Include at least one tank in your drawings to practice cylinders along all three axes.

Tanks should primarily be constructed out of boxes and cylinders.
Add simple details like headlights, a window, or more guns for enhancement.
Use the X method to ensure consistent wheel sizes.

General Tips

Keep lines light and clean in early stages to avoid messiness.
Apply "X-ray vision goggles" to visualize and construct internal parts.
Remember the techniques for constructing cylinders inside boxes.
Review previous lessons if necessary to refresh on the concepts.

Deadline: Submit by 03/28/2024 for a chance to be in the critique video!

Randy P

•

My take on the level two tank. Freehanding ellipses is definitely not my idea of a relaxing weekend. Looking forward to watching the demo and critique videos and putting this assignment in my rearview.

Randy P

•

Some minor adjustments to correct proportions of the box and the angle of the treads.

Randy P

•

I’ve spent more days on this assignment than I’d care to admit. The first drawing was from memory. It went relatively quickly but the proportions looked distorted. Watched the demo video and tried again and again to get proportions and ellipses that seemed plausible. The tractor is my most recent attempt. The demo video makes it look so easy. Trying it on my own it revealed that I didn’t really have the intuitive principles of perspective down as well as I expected. Going to move on to level 2 and then get on to something else before I get burned out.

Randy P

•

Minor update. Realized after posting that the fourth wheel should be visible as well as the step entry on the far side.

@pmirko

•

10d

ok this was super hard and didn't go the way i hoped...i'll try another one again...

Tyson

•

20d

Supposed to be a Nissan Pao.

Stefan Sharkov

•

1mo

I sketched several car models and tanks, and this was my favorite page.

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

1mo

The wheels are super nice! I think the top of the tank in the middle could be adjusted to match the perspective more. That’s all. The cylinders look clean.

@hjalmarhoeg

•

1mo

Looks so easy when Stan does it, then you try yourself..

Chauncey Holder

•

2mo

First timing trying it. It was extremely diffcult- with the wheels

@al_ic_ja

•

2mo

@dollydigital

•

2mo

kind of going for a toy yugo vibe here (level 1)

@solobo

•

2mo

Level 1 first few attempts. Not sure I understand the axis orientation part, just putting circles in boxes... Will need to watch the critiques.

Michael Longhurst

•

2mo

The one from the back was based on the orientation in a picture. I did the one from the front next from imagination using a couple pictures as references. Definitely still some errors, but I felt like my second came out a lot better. Still struggling to balance using the axis lines vs the points on the box. Although I think part of the problem is not getting perfect squares in perspective. Any advice would be appreciated.

Michael Longhurst

•

2mo

A couple pictures I took of the car at the Fourney Transportation Museum in Denver. Great source for old car, motorcycle, and train references!

Natasha Johnson

•

2mo

Both scared and excited . Loved the project , this is my dream camper to go camping in . I can see there are mistakes with keeping lines in perspective . I’ll do this again . Any critique is welcome . 😎

Amani Noor (Amu)

•

2mo

This looks great! You've got nice line quality and most of your forms seem to be correctly in perspective. My only critique would be that the angle on some of your ellipses are slightly off. On some of the wheels you used the corner-to-corner angle of the square as the angle of the ellipse. Instead, the ellipse's angle should be perpendicular to the the axel between the two wheels. It can be tricky to find the correct angle as the corner-to-corner angle can look similar to the correct angle but I hope that this little diagram helps a little.

J. Menriv

•

2mo

Project - Wheels on Vehicles

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

2mo

Very nice 👍

@aakerhus

•

2mo

First sketch of the day!

Melanie Scearce

•

2mo

I reeeaaally like this style, do more!

Martin M

•

2mo

I like the stylised look of the drawing! For this exercise I would suggest to draw larger wheels and perhaps push the vanishing points together a bit more. At the moment there is no convergence for the lines because the VPs are too far away. So it is hard to evaluate if you really mastered the topic of this lesson: drawing cylinders in perspective

J. Menriv

•

2mo

Project - Wheels on Vehicles

Martin M

•

2mo

Very cool tank! The spaces between the wheels are filled in with black. This is a great stylistic choice but it makes it hard to evaluate if these are correct cylinders. I can only see one plane of the wheel cylinders: the ovals facing us. And I think you have the major and minor axis reversed on them. I would suggest uploading one more attempt at this exercise and not erasing the construction box that you use to draw the cylinder. That way we can help you improve or validate that you have mastered this lesson.

@aakerhus

•

3mo

Straight lines with help from Photoshop, wheels by freehand.

@aakerhus

•

3mo

Straight lines with help from Photoshop, wheels by freehand.

@aakerhus

•

3mo

Two cars in 2-point perspective. First ones a warm-up. Doesn't really look like wheels yet, but they are at least not as squished as earlier. I also got kind of lazy and drew some parts of the wheels intuitively instead of following the x-method etc, I still get too confused by all the different lines. Next try will be a more patient one with more coherent color-coding when it comes to the line work.

@aakerhus

•

3mo

First try before watching the demo, the wheels looks horrid and I got lost in some of the linework. I have no gut feeling about the placement of the major axis.

Rachel Dawn Owens

•

3mo

It’s not intuitive at all but the major and minor axis’s run perpendicular to each other. This assignment is a tough one. Looks like you got really close though. I dig your car drawing.

@roddangelo

•

3mo

Full course

You will be given unexpiring access to watch the videos online .

View course details

Give a gift

Give a gift card for art students to use on anything in the Proko store.

Or gift this course:

About instructor

go to profile

Stan Prokopenko

Founder of Proko, artist and teacher of drawing, painting, and anatomy. I try to make my lessons fun and ultra packed with information.