Mazda Rotary Club

Right, here goes, please bear with me! I\'ve kindly been given permission by Admin to run this poll so I can gauge interest, if any, before committing to a vendors slot. I\'d appreciate if people would vote honestly here, and don\'t tick a box if you wouldn\'t actually want to go through with the deal!

The thing I do is, draw pictures of things for people! Over the years I\'ve done any number of different things, but lately I\'ve found myself doing pics of peoples cars and bikes and stuff and I started to wonder if there\'s a market for this kinda thing. Everyone\'s seen the Wicked Art caricature things, but what I do is different. The "sitter" provides a photo of their Pride & Joy that they want immortalised, and I draw the vehicle from that. They\'ve been getting some good responses, so I thought I\'d see what you guys thought.

I\'ve included some examples here so you can see what we\'re talkin about. Please bear in mind these are copies of the originals that have then been scanned, so the quality is somewhat reduced from the orignal art, you\'ll have to take my word that they look a lot better than that in the flesh! If you click on the thumbnails, they should come up as a larger picture.

The question basically is; would you commission one of these of your car, bike, bus, jetski, bulldozer, etc, and if so, how much would you be willing to pay? Please do offer your comments as well as voting on the poll, all feedback is gratefully recieved. I\'ve been looking at around £50 a pop, which i think is not bad bearing in mind they each take some hours to do, and the buyer will be getting a totally unique, original piece of art utterly personal to them. This isn\'t some of the shelf RX-7-ish picture, this is a picture of YOUR car taken from your favourite photo. However, if I\'m miles wide of the mark, let me know!

Three examples of what can be done of the same car, in pencil, ink, and line with logo:
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A friends GTR-33 in ink, a fairly rough sketch, and the finished article in pencil;
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Two bikes in pencil for mates, a Francis-Barnett and a Honda SP-2, just to show opposite ends of the spectrum!
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A Corrado VR-6 for a wedding present to its owner;
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My own humble Rx-7 as a quick ink line drawing, to show that stylised finishes can be done, too;
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Two track pictures in pencil, one of the great Freddie Spencer at Jarama, taken from a Motocourse photo, and one of a friends\' GT40 on the owners club trackday at Goodwood;
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Finally, one in colour, Carl Fogarty winning at Brands (hurrah!). Colour would have to be at a higher price than ink or pencil, due to the materials and time involved, but would be possible, if required;
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as much as its against my religion to give Nik da oldman some praise, i must say these are actually very good :)
I was actually gonna contact you about getting one done of the feed me...until we gave it some jit treatment :D

Cheers, dude, nice of you to say so! Tell me you haven\'t done something horrible to your beautiful blue beast? Or were those triple rotor mutterings I kept hearing keeping you awake too much?:Giggle

they were :( hence Chris now has the blue beast....sort of....its the blue beast minus the bits that make it the beast :D
Has J asked u to do one of the red smoke machine yet?

so did you actually draw these or are they photoshopped?

If you did hand draw then thats some very good work, did you ever send anything to hartbeat? must take you a while?

Id be interested if you did a deal on two or more cars

"We can\'t promise to return your pictures...." Ha ha, never managed the interstellar fame that would\'ve come from being in Tony Hart\'s Gallery!

They\'re all hand drawn, by me, from photos, as I said. Ther\'s no Photoshop trickery involved. The only alterations have been done by my brother, who kindly scanned them in. He\'s only got an A4 scanner, and the pics are all A3 (oops, should\'ve said that earlier!), so they\'ve been spliced together in PhotoImpact, and cleaned up a bit where the scan was a bit dirty.

I\'d always be willing to do deals for multiple pictures, but I\'d have to take vendor status up first to not break club rules. This is just a poll to see if it\'s worth my while to do that

What size are the sketches, nice talent you have

Jit, yeah, I can\'t wait to do the mad Porsche-eating Cosmo! I was waiting for him to email me some photos, but I may be waiting a while, you know what he\'s like! I gues your FEED rocket had some issues, maybe it\'s a good thing to sort it from the inside out

Quote from: hamc;526544What size are the sketches, nice talent you have

Cheers, dude! :Thumbs-upThey are on A3 paper, except the colour one which was on art board slightly narrower than A3, but about as long. Look great on a black background in a frame, my mate had his GTR33 hanging in the hall just that way, but now it\'s in his library!

Jeez mate they are absolutely superb !!!

Really amazing !

Sorry should have said that I cant vote mate but would be up for one in pencil (£20-30 purely because I need to buy more bits for the car lol).

Quote from: gmogle;526562Sorry should have said that I cant vote mate but would be up for one in pencil (£20-30 purely because I need to buy more bits for the car lol).

Thank you kindly for the compliments. Dunno why you can\'t vote on the poll, though? Is it one of those members-only things? Bizzarre

Everyone needs to buy more things for their car lol, its the only reason to earn money! :Thumbs-up

I wish i could draw like that, praise to you MR Greek.

Why, thank you, MR Pilot! :D

Still only two votes, though, so it\'s not looking like people like them enough to actually put hand in pocket. Or is there some problem with it not letting people vote, like gmogle said?

i can vote and i must say mate that they are awsome :D

Thanks, Karl, I appreciate it. I think it\'d be nice to do a yellow one, cos there\'s not much shading involved! Watching the poll for what colour cars are, it\'s a bit of a worry there\'s so many black ones, means a lot more work for me if this all comes off! More yellow and white ones, that\'s what we want! :yes

Veery nice pics there! ;)

I have to say - i\'ve ticked the \'20-30 quid pencil\' option, but that\'s more due to the quality of my existing pictures - if I manage to take a really good shot, I\'d probably be willing to pay a bit more :D

Also, do you only work direct from a photo, or are you able to put in some \'additions\' ? :o

I can either work from a photo, or a digital image file that\'s emailed to me. TBH, the latter\'s preferable, cos I can then do things easily like take the colour out in the computer. Makes it a lot easier to copy into pencil that way, and it\'s not the same reduceing the hue saturation in Photoshop as just black and white photocopying a colour print! With that said, I\'ve worked from photos quite happily, so not a problem.

Depends on what you mean by "additions". Things like logos and such are obviously no problem, as you can see from the pics here. If you\'re talking about taking a photo of a stock RX and magicking it into a wide-body JGTC replica, then that\'s a bit more tricky, and I guess the cost\'d reflect that. Not to say it can\'t be done, but is obviously a bit more involved than simply copying someeone\'s photo.

The quality of photography isn\'t necessarily a massive issue, either, so long as it\'s not too out of focus or taken at night, silhouette, etc! If there does seem to be enough interest for me to start this thing up, I\'d be quite happy to meet up with clients within a reasonable distance to discuss their requirements, and in such situations it\'d be no problem to take photos of the car for them too, if for instance they\'ve not got a camera other than a phone or whatever. I\'m not a professional photographer or anything, but I wouldn\'t need to be for the purposes of this excercise! HTH

Quote from: Nik da Greek;526542"We can\'t promise to return your pictures...." Ha ha, never managed the interstellar fame that would\'ve come from being in Tony Hart\'s Gallery!

They\'re all hand drawn, by me, from photos, as I said. Ther\'s no Photoshop trickery involved. The only alterations have been done by my brother, who kindly scanned them in. He\'s only got an A4 scanner, and the pics are all A3 (oops, should\'ve said that earlier!), so they\'ve been spliced together in PhotoImpact, and cleaned up a bit where the scan was a bit dirty.

I\'d always be willing to do deals for multiple pictures, but I\'d have to take vendor status up first to not break club rules. This is just a poll to see if it\'s worth my while to do that

Very impressive work there mate. Now im pretty interested. Id want to create a wall of fame for the cars that i have owned. I have decent enough snaps of all of them as well.

Which option do i tick if i want multiple pictures and MRC member discout? :wiggle

Aha, glad you asked that! I think you may have just uncovered a small flaw in the poll structure there, thanks for that! I guess tick the one that you\'d be willing to pay for a single picture, and then we\'d arrange something come the time regarding bulk discount. So long as we\'re not talking a back catalogue of around a hundred cars or something!

I guess that I\'ll bring the originals I\'ve got of these scans along on the tunnel run Saturday night, so if anyone\'s interested they can at least see what they\'re like at actual size on paper, a lot of the impact is lost on these little thumbnails, and lots of the detail, too

You showed me these at Rotorstock, if you remember? I\'d definitely be interested (I\'ve already voted).
 
I have to say these drawings are very impressive - you\'ve got a real talent there! :Thumbs-up

Yeah, dude, course I remember. I\'d be honoured to do a car as fantastic-looking as yours, I think it has to be one of the best-finished Rxs ever. Has it arrived yet? You must be desperate to drive it by now!

Would you be able to do one of say my dog with a background ???

Have been wanting to get one done of him for a while, also what kind of sizes can you do ???

thanks :cheers

Why, thank you very much :)
 
It has arrived and is in the process of being registered/MOT\'d. Should be ready after the weekend but unfortunately (!) I\'m off on holiday then... Well, ok, it\'s not really unfortunate, but you know what I mean!!

Nik, that\'s some superb skills there, looks like many, many hours of practise and dedication has gone into each of them! Very impressed am I!

Saying that, dunno if I\'d get a pic of my car done, it\'s just not quite my raison d\'etre if you see what I mean...

Gurj, interesting question, dude. I dunno, I\'ve never "done" dogs is the quick answer! (Stop sniggering at the back, I couldn\'t think how else to say that!). I guess it wouldn\'t be impossible, and as for size, well, within reason, they could be whatever size you wanted. I might draw the line if you wanted one the size of a sheet of wallpaper, though!

Thanks for the compliment, Mark, I especially like the way you slip into Yoda-speak at the end there :Thumbs-up! I can understand that its not to everyone\'s taste to have a pic of their car on the wall, in fact, I don\'t have one of my own car up, ironically. I\'ve got an A1 size pic of Niall Mackenzie on the Boost Yamaha YZF in the downstairs loo, though, dunno what that says about our household! Also, we rather bizarrely have a few pics I painted up of Alice In Wonderland, copied from the incomparably talented Harry Rountree who illustrated a very rare edition in his inimitable water colour style. Nice though they are, I didn\'t think they\'d do much to enhance my reputation if I\'d posted them up on the MRC site! :yes

Quote from: Nik da Greek;528190Gurj, interesting question, dude. I dunno, I\'ve never "done" dogs is the quick answer! (Stop sniggering at the back, I couldn\'t think how else to say that!). I guess it wouldn\'t be impossible, and as for size, well, within reason, they could be whatever size you wanted. I might draw the line if you wanted one the size of a sheet of wallpaper, though!

Thanks for the compliment, Mark, I especially like the way you slip into Yoda-speak at the end there :Thumbs-up! I can understand that its not to everyone\'s taste to have a pic of their car on the wall, in fact, I don\'t have one of my own car up, ironically. I\'ve got an A1 size pic of Niall Mackenzie on the Boost Yamaha YZF in the downstairs loo, though, dunno what that says about our household! Also, we rather bizarrely have a few pics I painted up of Alice In Wonderland, copied from the incomparably talented Harry Rountree who illustrated a very rare edition in his inimitable water colour style. Nice though they are, I didn\'t think they\'d do much to enhance my reputation if I\'d posted them up on the MRC site! :yes

Size wise i was thinking like a painting size ? not sure how to measure exactly but i think A2 ???

Was thinking of having Zeus sat down with a background either of snow or trees on a hill top ???

Zeus:

This sort of background ?

Bl00dy hell, it\'d take an A2 to fit that pooch in! He looks a solid enough beast! All things are possible, however! I\'m assuming we\'re talking about a colour, painted pic here, though? Cos to do an A2 size pic in pencil with a full background would take a lifetime!(A2 is roughly 60x42 cm IIRC)

As to the background in the tigger painting, hmm, difficult to tell from that shot, but it looks airbrushed, which is something I\'m lacking just now. Can be replicated by other means, though, just takes a bit of furkling about (technical term!) to get such a subtle blending effect. Pretty sure I could have a reasonably convincing bash at it.

Nice uplighter, btw!

Quote from: Nik da Greek;528222Bl00dy hell, it\'d take an A2 to fit that pooch in! He looks a solid enough beast! All things are possible, however! I\'m assuming we\'re talking about a colour, painted pic here, though? Cos to do an A2 size pic in pencil with a full background would take a lifetime!(A2 is roughly 60x42 cm IIRC)

As to the background in the tigger painting, hmm, difficult to tell from that shot, but it looks airbrushed, which is something I\'m lacking just now. Can be replicated by other means, though, just takes a bit of furkling about (technical term!) to get such a subtle blending effect. Pretty sure I could have a reasonably convincing bash at it.

Nice uplighter, btw!

Cheers my good man, the background does not have to be clear and faint colour will be cool like the Tiger painting, not trying to put pressure on you at all Nik but if you can would be awesome.

Another shot of the Tiger pic

No pressure! Should be able to sort something out, dude.

Quote from: Nik da Greek;528190Thanks for the compliment, Mark, I especially like the way you slip into Yoda-speak at the end there :Thumbs-up! I can understand that its not to everyone\'s taste to have a pic of their car on the wall, in fact, I don\'t have one of my own car up, ironically. I\'ve got an A1 size pic of Niall Mackenzie on the Boost Yamaha YZF in the downstairs loo, though, dunno what that says about our household! Also, we rather bizarrely have a few pics I painted up of Alice In Wonderland, copied from the incomparably talented Harry Rountree who illustrated a very rare edition in his inimitable water colour style. Nice though they are, I didn\'t think they\'d do much to enhance my reputation if I\'d posted them up on the MRC site! :yes

Hey it makes my old sudo-Nippon wood block prints seems pretty basic by comparision ;) But then I\'ve not drawn or painted anything (except walls in the house!) for years and years now... Shame as it\'d be nice to get back into it, like so much other stuff, good to see you\'ve kept it up :D

As for the Yoda speak, I must have been picking my nose and the greeness just brought out the inner-Yoda in me!

And nothing wrong with Alice in Wonderland, it\'s a seriously superb bit of psychedelia and has always had some amazing imagery with it, I\'d been keen to see them, don\'t worry about your rep on here, I can join in with some girly slaps to try and scare the bg brutes away!

Okay, then, here you go. Not the best scan the worlds ever seen, I haven\'t tried to colour correct it and it\'s come out a bit yellow, but gives you the general idea. Apologies to the late great Harry Rountree, one of Alice in the courtroom


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Superb, really nice work there mate :D

I\'m sure there\'s something that I\'d be more than happy to commission you to do, you\'ve got a rare talent to have such a broad scope with your work, if you\'d ever need a website to sell it on just gimmy a shout ;)

Thanks again! I\'m gonna be blushing under all this praise. TBH, I don\'t know that I\'ve any mad special skills, it\'s a lot easier to copy something that\'s already there than to make it up off the top of your head! I remember seeing a quote from a sculptor, can\'t remember his name, who was asked how he manged to produce such a startlingly lifelike bust of Gladstone, the Victorian Prime Minister. His answer, as if it was the most natural thing in the worls, was "I take take a large block of marble and chip away all of the parts that don\'t look like Mr Gladstone". That\'s kinda what I do in reverse, take a bit of paper and fill in the bits that look like a car, or whatever! Dunno how, it just happens! I started by painting album covers for people on their leather greebo jackets and stuff, had to draw the line under that when I kept asked getting for "a naked women holding a guitar with lightning and stuff" every other week. One likes to keep some artistic integrity!

Is website design what you do, then, chap? Might be an idea if this takes off....

They are some fantastic drawings. Good if you can use your talent to earn a living. A girl I joust to know does a similar thing to what you are proposing ie produces pencil sketches from people’s photos but cats & fisherman’s catches.
Took her a long time to build up the volume of work to the point see could give up the day job but drawings are all she does now. Had to do lots of shows but what she found did make money is limited edition 1 of 50 prints, so she had a stock of cat or fish drawings depending on the show & an easel  showing how she could copy photos.

That\'s different! Cats I can understand, but surely all fish look the same except to other fish, don\'t they!?:Giggle

LOL @ Fish, one man and his fish :D

Quote from: Nik da Greek;528633Is website design what you do, then, chap? Might be an idea if this takes off....

Indeed it is, well it used to be full time, however I\'m now a corporate wh0r3who does web-applications (oo-er!)... So all my web design is on the sidelines now.

But coming into winter I always get involved in a bit more moonlighting as there\'s not much to do outside in the cold drizzle (a bit like summer then).

They are wicked Nik, hope you start doing these as I would love one done

Thanks, Ash! Be a nice challenge to do your graphics justice. I half-thought from your post they were just a photoshop, but then I saw them at RS5, they\'re awesome, really good :yes. Dunno if you got the knock with the weather, cos by the time I got a chance to come over and compliment you on them, you\'d vanished! Are you going on the tunnel run tm? Like I said, I\'ll bring the originals along for anyone who wants a look at the real thing

Looks like I\'ll have to get a vendors slot sorted out with Admin when I get paid next, by the look of things I\'ll have enough requests to make it worth all our while!  :Thumbs-up

yes mate ill be there tonight. Thanks for the comments.

Think Maz was looking at these as a birthday treat for me. Look wicked framed in the office

Thread revival!

Nik has recently completed a pen\'d drawing of Feed Chicks FD, it looks Awesome and i would recomend his work to everyone. Here\'s a couple of pics:-

(http://i974.photobucket.com/albums/ae230/feed-me/bits%20and%20bobs/29032011942.jpg)

On the wall:-

(http://i974.photobucket.com/albums/ae230/feed-me/bits%20and%20bobs/29032011944.jpg)

and look at the wheels:-

(http://i974.photobucket.com/albums/ae230/feed-me/bits%20and%20bobs/29032011943.jpg)

\'Mr. Da Greek\' has got some skilz for sure!