Modding Cars

[Speedtouch]

So then, lets talk about how to mod a car in photoshop!

 

Start off by choosing your picture. I find that the less reflections on the car, the better. This is the one I'll be using for this, open it up in photoshop.

 

 

1: Bodykit.

 

We'll start off by simply making it look a bit more badass by giving it a body kit. Lets begin at the front. So get out your 'Polygonal Lasso Tool' and select the front bumper, stopping at the headlights. Try to be pretty accurate here.

 

 

Once you have done that, Ctrl C (copy) and Ctrl V (Paste) it, so as to put it into a new layer. You want to do this with everything you re-shape so you don't end up with parts where you can see through the layers.

 

The first step is to stretch the bumper. Just use Free Transform (Ctrl T) to make it longer, but not too long; this has to look realistic remember.

 

Now what you do is simply sort it out so it looks part of the car. This car has a front numberplate, which now looks stretched and very wrong, as well as the join being clearly visible between the new bumper and car.

 

 

I find that the simplest way of dealing with this is to delete the numberplate off the new bumper, leaving the old, non-stretched one behind. Use the lasso tool again to select round it (again don't be too accurate), then hit Delete.

 

 

This is clearly wrong still, but it is better than before. Continue to work away the edges so that the grill looks normal. What this is doing is basically linking the original grill into the new one, creating the effect of a longer and more normal one. In this case, I had to copy a section from the original car and overlap it. Below is how it turned out.

 

 

Now we can do this to the side skirts and rear bumper as well. These are much more simple as there is nothing really on them to sort out. Just select round them, copy them to a new layer then use Free transform and make them look part of the car. Remember to keep the outline of the wheel or wheelarch. Do this by simply selecting the shape of the wheelarch and using a black painbrush to touch up the edges. For wheels, select the shape then delet as necessary (i.e. don't paint over the wheels) My final bodykit is shown below.

 

 

2: Colour.

 

The more observant of you may have noticed I'm using a white car. This is because its the easiest to paint :p. The lighter the color, the easier to paint, so try and use silver or white cars for the best results.

 

First things first, you have to select the car. This means going round it selecting the whole thing, then eliminating parts which don't want to be painted. Thats everything from windows (tinting will be done later) to the numberplate. This takes time.

 

First use the Magnetic Lasso Tool to get the basic outline of the car's bodywork. Then use the Polygonal Lasso Tool to go round everything and get into finer detail. Don't rush this, because if you miss even tiny bits, it will show up. Don't worry about the seams between the doors, as they aren't affected too much by painting. After you have finished, go to Select>Feather and set it to 2pixels, then hit OK.

 

 

Once you have done that, we must save it. Go to Select>Save Selection, then hit OK. You can now do whatever you want, as it has saved the selection.

 

 

Select the paintbrush, choosing the transparent red spray (Red circle). Set the opacity and fill values to 15% (Blue circle).

 

Then go and choose the colour you want to paint your car. I'm going to do a classic two-tone paint scheme, to show what can be done. Remember two-tone and Pearlescent are 2 different things. Pearlescent paint is probably possible, but very difficult.

 

If you only want a single colour paintjob, then skip past this.

 

To start off with I must de-select the top half of the car, so I only paint the bottom half. To do this, take the polygonal lasso tool and create a line which matches the line of the car, then go round the outside of the top half, de-selecting it.

 

 

Now zoom out to about 33.3% (doesn't matter too much), and select the paintbrush as above. Set the paintbrush size so it is about 1.5 times the height of the image at this zoom. Then smoothly drag the paintbruh over the car. Repeat this until the desired tone is achieved.

 

 

Now I want to paint the top half. Go to Select>Load Selection then under Channel choose 'Alpha 1'. The whole car should be selected now, as you did before. Now de-select as you did before, following the line along the side of the car, but now de-select the bottom half (the part that is now painted).

 

If you want to tint the windows, simply repeat this process (but without the two-tone). Select the windows this time, and then use the paintbrush tool, but in black (or another colour if you wish) to darken them. Don't make them entirely black, as this won't look realistic. I have also tinted the windows in the final image.

 

 

I'm going to take a break now, but after that I'll update ts to show you how to add new wheels to an image.

[Speed]

This is such a brilliant tutorial, love it! :D +Rep. Gotta try this when I get back.

[Iced_Bullet]

Wow, simple yet effective!

 

I say simple, you may just make it looks much easier than it is. I'm sure the picture I will want to use will probably make it impossible :p

[Speedtouch]

Yeah the kind of picture can change things dramatically. Like when you are selecting the car for painting, if the background is not contrasting to the car (again, an ideal picture here - light car, dark background), then the magnetic tool will not get anywhere near the actual car's outline. It can be quite irritating.

[Speedtouch]

PART TWO

 

So to continue on from what I started. Onto the second half of my tutorial for modding cars.

 

3: Wheels.

 

Start off by choosing the wheels you want. Try to get them off an image of a real car, and not studio images, as they don't have brakes, so would look weird on the car. Also try to get an image with the same/similar angle as the original picture. I've chosen the wheels off the new Aston DB9. Open up the image in photoshop.

 

 

Zoom in and select one of the rims. Don't be too careful, but make sure that its all included. We can erase excess amounts of the tyre-wall later.

 

 

Ctrl C and Ctrl V it into your original picture (for me this is the M3). Leave it there and go back to repeat this and bring the rear wheel in.

 

 

Now use free transform to move it into place. Don't worry about rough edges just yet, but get it looking normal first. What I find is it always looks better if you use this chance to make the rims larger, to fill up the wheel arches a bit more. But don't go too big.

 

 

As you can see, the front wheel comes in front of the bumper, so we are going to have to sort that out.

 

Hide the wheel's layer, then use the polygonal lasso tool to go around the edge of the wheelarch. Simply delete that off the wheel.

 

 

Now you can go round the rims to make sure they are nice and cleanly put in. Use the lasso tool again and carefully go around it, deleting any excess tyre-wall. My final product is shown below.

 

 

Anything else that could be done to the car? E: Working now on how to 'slump' or 'drop' the car (i.e. lower its suspension)

[Speedtouch]

PART THREE

 

4: Dropping.

 

Next on to how to lower a car on its suspension to achieve a 'lowrider' look.

 

Start off by selecting the car in a certain way. You need to run the line along the bottom of the car, not including wheels, then select the rest of the upper half of the photo. Its hard to explain, so heres an image showing it:

 

 

Once you have selected that, simply use the Move tool, and bump it down using the down arrow on your keyboard. Again, not too far. The problem I've had is that earlier on I dropped the bumpers to a very low level. Therefore I can't drop the whole car by much, or it will look too weird.

 

 

Now we have to fill in the gaps, such as the one in the front wheelarch here. Zoom in and carefully select the hole, then fill it in with the black paintbrush. Spend your time here (which I didn't).

 

 

This could be better if I hadn't dropped the bumpers so much, but you get the idea. Have fun!

[hesonly5]

Wow, you use the Polygonal Lasso tool a lot. The Pen Tool is much easier for creating smooth lines ;)

 

Awesome tutorial, anyways :)

[iBilo]

Nice, I'm gonna have a go at that, will post my result here. :)

[Speedtouch]

Wow, you use the Polygonal Lasso tool a lot. The Pen Tool is much easier for creating smooth lines ;)

 

Pah! I learned everything with the lasso tool! You and your terrible pen tool. :p

[iBilo]

Magnetic Lasso is alright, drives me up the wall most of the time coz I can't keep my hands still so I muck it up all the time.

 

Quick Selection ftw!

[Guest RB26DETT]

thank you speedtouch. will have a go at this later. ;)

 

+rep :)

 

EDIT: crap! have to spread!

[EW]

just started to get the hang off this its well cool :thumbsup:

please check out mine this is my thrid try so its getting better.

http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm106/elliottwoodruff/tireclickme.jpg

EDIT: cheers speed for all this +rep

[Guest RB26DETT]

lol barbie girl beemer. :p

[EW]

lol barbie girl beemer. :p

its cool though huh?

i find it easier to used dead light girlly colours they seems to come out better

[Andreas¹]

Pah! I learned everything with the lasso tool! You and your terrible pen tool. :p

HI-5!!!!! Lasso FTW :thumbsup:

Great tutorials, I'll have a go right now I think, but I think the way of colouring the car is complicated xD :D

+rep

[Speedtouch]

^ Well its the only way, and you don't have to do a two tone paintjob. And I find that if you keep doing it, it gets easier.

 

And, er, interesting colour scheme there elliottwoodruff! :lol:

[EW]

^ Well its the only way, and you don't have to do a two tone paintjob. And I find that if you keep doing it, it gets easier.

 

And, er, interesting colour scheme there elliottwoodruff! :lol:

aye the picture was special request from a friend of mine (girl)

:cheeky:

[iBilo]

Btw, a tip the front bumper thing doesn't work with Alfa Romeos

 

The rest of it works fine tho.

[Speedtouch]

^ What do you mean? How doesn't it work?

[iBilo]

When you try stretch the bumper the triangle bit around the logo stretches, that's where the front bumper sits, the only way you can do it really if to grab the bottom bit of the bumper and stretch that. :)

[Speedtouch]

^ It is possible, I'll just do that now.

[Andreas¹]

I painted my car another way :) Not two-tone, but anyways ;)

[Speedtouch]

Part Four: The Alfa Or Audi Problem

 

A (sort of) common problem is front grills, such as on cars like Audis or Alfa Romeos. This brief section will go over this and how to deal with it.

 

When selecting the front bumper, use the same methods and principles, but don't select the grill. We will sort that out later.

 

 

Next select the grill in the same way. On the Brera I chose to not select the top part, as that would possibly create work later on to fill in gaps there.

 

 

Use Free transform to pull the grill down to match the bumper. Lastly, erase carefully the logo off of the newly stretched grill, so it doesn't look weird.

 

Final product:

 

 

Thanks to previous experience, I know that Audis are harder than this. You have to be careful as both the logo(s) and the numberplate are on the grill. It takes time and patience.

[Captain_ClutchKick]

Some good stuff here! I like to 'shop pictures of cars from Gran Turismo 4. No I don't want a PS3/hex box, I'd rather have real life driving lessons :)

[SBCriss]

Nice tutorial ;) i gonna use this car:

http://www.roadfly.com/new-cars/wp-content/uploads/gallery/2007-mitsubishi-lancer-evolution/mitsubishi-lancer-evolution.jpg