Car Livery Project

Brief

This brief is interesting. I like the modelling and texturing part of it, but the research that has to go into the project first is boring, in my opinion. I think my main goal will just be to get some decent reference images from each art movement that I would possibly use as a livery, so when I come to picking my final design(s), I will have plenty to choose from, or I could even mix some together.

Pre-Production Research

Cubism

I think cubism, overall, as an art style, doesn't look as entertaining and exciting to me compared to others. However, I think there is sometimes more lore and secrets that are put into them, which makes them quite intriguing to look at and wonder what the artist meant behind some details. Furthermore, the simple shapes and patterns that are put together to closely resemble something else are quite a cool idea.

 For my car livery design, I think that these could be good ideas to get a base design started, but I'd probably want something with a little less detail. Although cubism is quite "simple" in a way, these artists bring the paintings to life by adding lots of shading and using specific colours in particular places to get the finalised result. I, however, will be unable to add as much detail to my car design, so I will have to settle for something a bit more basic, but I'm already having some ideas that I could do that include cubism, but it takes a lot of skill to be able to make a picture out of lots of little shapes. A simple design like the artwork made by Georges Braque above is more like what I'd go for.

[1] www.pablopicasso.org. (n.d.). Portrait of Ambroise Vollard, 1910 by Pablo Picasso. [online] Available at: https://www.pablopicasso.org/portrait-of-ambroise-vollard.jsp.
[2] Anon, (n.d.). 12 of the Most Famous Paintings and Artworks by Paul Cézanne | ArtisticJunkie.com. [online] Available at: https://artisticjunkie.com/paul-cezanne-paintings/.
[3] Bradley, A.T. (2022). Top 10 Famous Georges Braque Paintings. [online] Available at: https://art-facts.com/georges-braque-paintings/.

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cool and unique art style. I think Dali's art surpasses most other artworks of the same kind in most ways; however, the other two listed here still give me possible designs that I could use.

Looking at these paintings for inspiration for my car design, I think Klee's is more likely to be one I use. Although the others are good, I like the idea of fish and other things being together that shouldn't really be together, and it's one of the simplest ones that I could implement into a design in some way. I could take inspiration from the other artwork by making objects look abnormal or disfigured.

[4] artst (2021). 10 Most Famous Salvador Dali Paintings. [online] Artst. Available at: https://www.artst.org/salvador-dali-paintings/.
[5] Francis-bacon.com. (2025). Study for Head of Lucian Freud | Francis Bacon. [online] Available at: https://www.francis-bacon.com/artworks/paintings/study-head-lucian-freud.
[6] Paulklee.net. (2020). Fish Magic, 1925 by Paul Klee. [online] Available at: https://www.paulklee.net/fish-magic.jsp.

 Abstract Expressionism

This type of art style is an interesting one, and in my opinion, not a great one. Overall, I know this is meant to give artists a way to express their emotional impulses, but I think it's a bit ridiculous, especially considering the price some artwork sells for.

In my car design, I may take some inspiration from Kooning and Pollock's work, since these two paintings look alright, and I have some ideas for how I can implement them into the design. Kooning's could be quite cool for a more camo style livery, and Pollock's looks like it would be cool if I wanted a design that looked like you could see inside the car or something else. I may make a very quick livery inspired by Rothko's art, which would look very simple, but on a low-poly vehicle, it may actually look better.

[7] The Artist. (2021). Most Famous Willem de Kooning Artworks. [online] Available at: https://www.theartist.me/art-inspiration/famous-willem-de-kooning-artworks/.
[8] Abstract Expressionism - American Art Movement: New York School 1940-1965. (2024). Mark Rothko Biography Paintings Art - Abstract Expressionism. [online] Available at: https://abstractexpressionism.net/mark-rothko/ [Accessed 24 Sep. 2025].
[9] The Artist Editorial (2018). 15 Most Famous Jackson Pollock Paintings - Abstract Expressionism. [online] Art and Culture Journal. Available at: https://www.theartist.me/art/15-famous-jackson-pollock-paintings/.

Art Deco

Next up, this art style is quite similar to that of cubism. However, in some way, I think it's a bit better, especially since, in my opinion, the art produced looks a lot better than the counterpart. On the other hand, it may be slightly less easy to convert something like this into a car decal, due to the shapes being a bit more defined, and I don't want anything much since it won't complement the low-poly model well.

In my car design, I'll probably take the bold shapes for the design and the very distinctive colours. When I get around to it, I may look for more images for reference, since I most probably won't have any of this as my design. I may use a floral design for the decal, though, and if I do, I could use Lempicka's design for that.

[10] Editorial, T.A. (2022). 15 Famous Artworks by Sonia Delaunay. [online] The Artist. Available at: https://www.theartist.me/art-inspiration/15-famous-artworks-by-sonia-delaunay/.
[11] TheCollector. (2023). Get to Know Tamara de Lempicka Through 8 Works. [online] Available at: https://www.thecollector.com/tamara-de-lempicka-works/.
[12] Marta (2011). Erté. [online] Art Deco Style. Available at: https://artdecostyle.ca/art-deco-style-blog/art-deco-artist-erte.

Art Nouveau

This art style is fairly unique compared to the others discussed so far. It is heavily inspired by plants and flowers, making up a lot of paintings, but also by how they are drawn. They have lots of smooth, curved lines, which make for some very nice pieces of art. They are relatively colourful, but always seem to be quite dull, not popping out at you much.

On my livery design, I can use this across the whole car, similar to what I said about the art decor above. Instead of having that unique floral design that Lempicka has, I could use Mackintosh's, which may fit in with the low-poly style a bit better. Looking at these three pictures as a whole, curved lines and circles are very abundant, as well as some smaller details that I could try to work into my design.

[13] Henri Matisse. (2011). The Tree of Life, 1905 by Gustav Klimt. [online] Available at: https://www.gustav-klimt.com/The-Tree-Of-Life.jsp.
[14] Snow, E. (2022). Charles Rennie Mackintosh in 10 Scottish Art Nouveau Designs. [online] TheCollector. Available at: https://www.thecollector.com/charles-rennie-mackintosh-10-scottish-art-nouveau-designs/.
[15] Meyer, I. (2023). Alphonse Mucha - Discover the Famous Art Nouveau Artist. [online] Art in Context. Available at: https://artincontext.org/alphonse-mucha/.

Graffiti

In my opinion, graffiti is one of the most random, but also best forms of art. There's pretty much no exact similarities between every artist's work, apart from the fact that they are commonly spray-painted onto unauthorised public surfaces. The artist usually does this to draw attention to their artwork because it's a form of expressionism from the artist or a stylistic symbol. From the examples above, it's very clear that it's shown in various ways. Banksy is definitely one of, if not the most recognisable, usually because his art has a lot of meaning behind it. This is seen in one of his most recent pieces, where a judge is overpowering a protester, signifying the power those above are abusing. The message was amplified when authorities tried to cover it up, since it only proves the painting to be true.

Since graffiti commonly has a lot of meaning behind it, a lot of the time political or otherwise, it would be a bit difficult for me to replicate that. However, I do like some of the art styles that can be seen throughout all of graffiti, which probably makes it one of the closest contenders for my livery design. I think the simplicity of Banksy's interests me more, and I could make it somewhat easily. Getting an idea for it, though, would be difficult. Maybe if I go for McLaren, I could do something to do with the brand, but I'll have to think closer to the time. Haring's artwork is nice, and I think a car covered with similar shapes and patterns could look good; however, it will take a lot of time, so that might be one of the last designs if I get around to it, since it will probably take a bit longer to fit everything in, unless I mix it with another piece of art. I probably won't use Basquiat's art as a reference for my livery. It's mostly because I don't want my car to look like a nursery kid's art project, but it just isn't really what I'm thinking of doing.

[16] thecaboodler (2021). 11 Most Famous Banksy Graffiti Works, Iconic Images. [online] Listcaboodle. Available at: https://listcaboodle.com/famous-banksy-graffiti/.
[17] www.wikiart.org. (n.d.). The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1984 - Keith Haring - WikiArt.org. [online] Available at: https://www.wikiart.org/en/keith-haring/the-marriage-of-heaven-and-hell-1984.
[18] artst (2022). 10 Most Famous Jean-Michel Basquiat Paintings. [online] Artst. Available at: https://www.artst.org/basquiat-paintings/.

Pop Art

Pop art is another one of the more popular art styles, at least for me. I think overall it's quite a nice style; however, it does partly depend on the artist. There are a couple of different ways I imagine I could go about making a livery based around it, but it definitely isn't the easiest, since it doesn't really look like it's something that would be seen on a car. The simplicity through using as few colours as possible makes it an art style that seems quite easy to replicate, but artists like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol prove it takes skill.

Thinking of how I'd convert similar artwork onto my car livery, I will straight away say that I am not inspired in any way by Yayoi Kusama's work. In my opinion, it's another artist creating things that look like they have been made by a five-year-old, and it isn't something I think would remotely look good on a car. Andy Warhol's work is very interesting because he creates a lot of image depth by using various shades and colours. Although I like it, I don't know how I'd draw something on a car, so his stuff probably won't be of use to me, but I'll see when I start making it. For me, Lichtenstein's is not only my favourite, but the easiest to make into a sort of livery. Similarly to Warhol, they have a lot of well-known pieces of work, but they always have the same style, which is nice to see. If I were to use his art as a reference, I'd pretty much be painting a picture on a car in this comic-like style, which isn't the worst, but it would take a lot of time, and I don't know if I could make it look great. Either way, still a good idea.

[19] artst (2021). 10 Most Famous Andy Warhol Paintings. [online] Artst. Available at: https://www.artst.org/andy-warhol-paintings/.
[20] The Artist Editorial (2021). 12 Most Famous Artworks by Roy Lichtenstein. [online] Artist PopLab. Available at: https://www.theartist.me/art-inspiration/12-most-famous-artworks-by-roy-lichtenstein/.
[21] SINGULART (2023). The 10 Most Famous Artworks of Yayoi Kusama. [online] Magazine. Available at: https://www.singulart.com/blog/en/2023/11/13/yayoi-kusama-famous-artworks/.

Dada

Dada is one of those art styles that, at least to me, looks like it's made by people just reusing other people's work. The artwork by Marcel Duchamp seems to be the Mona Lisa with a couple of small changes. Höch's looks like a collage of random things they cut out, and Ray's looks interesting, I suppose. In my opinion, they aren't the kind of art style that takes lots of effort and looks the best, but they're still art that I, for some reason, have to look at.

As far as my car livery goes, I probably won't make anything similar to any of this, but it's nice to have some sort of inspiration. If I were to take great inspiration from any of these, I'd probably try to do something like Höch's. I believe the collage feel of this specific piece of art would fit into the low-poly style a bit better than the rest. Overall, though, I probably wouldn't use any, since, especially from these, there's nothing that I particularly like and would go out of my way to use.

[22] Artchive.com. (2024). A Night at Saint Jean by Man Ray. [online] Available at: https://www.artchive.com/artwork/a-night-at-saint-jean-man-ray/ [Accessed 12 Nov. 2025].
[23] Cohen, A. (2019). The Radical Legacy of Hannah Höch, One of the Only Female Dadaists. [online] Artsy. Available at: https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-radical-legacy-hannah-hoch-one-female-dadaists.
[24] Davis, C. (2020). Dadaism: 10 Iconic Artworks from the Dada Art Movement. [online] The Collector. Available at: https://www.thecollector.com/dadaism-art-of-dada/.

Pointillism

For the last art style that I will be researching for this car livery project, I looked a bit into pointillism. This art style is certainly one that takes a lot of time and effort to make, since the artist has to sit and paint a lot of dots instead of using the brush of a paintbrush properly. Pointillism is another one of the styles that I find to be really quite nice, and I would certainly consider this to be something that I include. However, I think something that would fit better would be an 8-bit art style since they are basically the same, but it would certainly fit the low-poly model a bit better in my opinion. The problem with both of these art styles is that I am not good at either. Not only do I not draw regular pictures very well, but having to manually make the shadows and highlights is something I definitely struggle with. However, I'm sure that there's some way to automatically change an image into a pixelated one, but I'm not exactly sure how.

For my car livery design, I will certainly consider at least somehow including this art style or one similar to 8-bit. All three of the artists that I chose have quite similar styles, but if I were to pick a favourite to try and replicate the most, it would have to be Henri-Edmond Cross. Not only do his dots connect really well to form the picture, but it looks, to me at least, to have the most detail. The dots look a lot smaller, and there's a bit of a better gradient, especially where the shadows occur. Also, his art stands out to me a bit more compared to the other two artists, even though I like all three's work.

[25] Zelazko, A. (2019). Vincent van Gogh | Biography, Art, & Facts. In: Encyclopædia Britannica. [online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vincent-van-Gogh.
[26] Anonymous (2020). The Pink Cloud. [online] Cleveland Museum of Art. Available at: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2020.106.
[27] Taggart, E. (2018). How the Pioneers of Pointillism Continue to Influence Artists Today. [online] My Modern Met. Available at: https://mymodernmet.com/pointillism-art-georges-seurat/.

Low-Poly Diorama

Before we got to modelling the car, we were tasked to create a small, low-poly diorama to get us used to the art style. Before I started modelling anything, I searched around online for some reference images.

Researching Car Ideas

Since I'm a big McLaren fan, I thought I'd do a car model based off of one of their cars. I got some blueprint images from a website of my three favourite, and then it was time to chose my favourite one. Obviously, I could always do more than one, but this project is mostly about the livery design, so I'll most probably just end up doing one car, which I decided would be the McLaren P1. Not only is it a nice car, but out of the three I like the most, it would be the easiest to model and texture by far. The Formula 1 car would definitely be one of the worst since there's a lot less tutorials online for them, and the Senna GTR just has a bit too much going on. Considering I also need to keep the poly count within 3000, I don't want lots of extra details and a weirdly shaped vehicle, just something nice and simple to work off of.

After deciding on the car and having a reference blueprint I could try to use inside of 3DS Max, I decided to get some real images of the car, also for reference. I thought this would help a lot because I can't see all of the details from a 2D blueprint, especially not with the same colour, without any lighting to show holes and bumps - definitely not because I started modelling and found it annoyingly hard. I went for these two pictures because they show the same angle, and the different colours show certain parts of the car better. For now, I imagined I wouldn't need a rear-view shot, since the blueprint should be enough for that. The interior is another one that I'll need to get at some point, but I don't really know how I'm doing that yet, so I'll wait until I get the base car complete before I even think about modelling an interior.

Modelling the Car

After getting the base of the car modelled, I decided I would make the wheels next. For this, I created a basic cylinder primitive, resized it to my preferred size, and inset the faces a bit. I then removed the inner face so I had a hole, and bridged the parts together.

After getting the tyre part, it was time to start on the rim for the wheel. I first started by selecting the middle inner faces and extruding them inward. After a bit of a struggle because 3DS Max wouldn't let me move these edges, I finally extruded them outwards, closer to the edge of the wheel.

Next up for the car was designing the headlight. Although I probably should've made something a little less high-poly, if you consider this relatively high-poly, but I thought it really tied the car together, and clearly revealed what brand of car it was at least. I went and found a good reference image of a P1 headlight, and originally I tried modelling it from a cube, but it was clear that it would become a lot easier if I just created a plane primitive and created a basic 2D shape first, and then make it 3D after.

After a while of adjusting the shape and playing around with the vertices, I came up with this shape. I liked how it was looking, so I moved it onto the spot I'd want it on the car, and extruded the face so I had something a bit more 3D to work with. As you can see, I have spent a bit more time on the model of the car chassis. I don't know why I have no screenshots, but either way, you don't get to see the development of the body, unfortunately. Nevertheless, I moved the bottom vertices of the headlight well into the faces of the car and made the top vertices a decent height. I had to create some segments on the surface so it didn't phase through, but after everything, I don't think it looks half bad. Yes, it could look better, but I had no idea how to do this, so modelling completely alone with no help of any sort, I think it looks pretty good.

After the headlights, I thought I should make the other lights, the rearlights. I was hoping they would be relatively similar to make compared to the headlight, and so I started the same way. First, I searched around for a reference image, and I think the one I found is perfect.

Once I had the reference image, again, I started out by making a rough outline of the lights. Once I had the plane design, I made it smooth and 3D by first chamfering the edges to make them more round, and beveling the top face. I then also made the ends pointy, since I didn't like how I had them suddenly ending, so this makes the end a bit more gradual.

After that, I put it on the spot I would most likely want it on the car. I then did the exact same process as the headlight, and made it look good.

After that, I saw that the rearlight area was somewhat inset from the rest of the rear of the car, so I duplicated the light and made a larger shape but with the original outline too. I then used the pro-boolean compound object on the car body, picked this object, and then I have a nice inset part on the rear of my car.

After finishing the majority of the car details, I thought it was a good idea to include some wing mirrors, since every car has them, and I thought it would be interesting to try to model them. To begin, I made a cylinder that I extruded and rotated a few times. After that, I selected a few specific edges and used the chamfer tool to make the edges a bit smoother and curved. In the end, it was basically just me doing some trial and error to get the final shape, but I'm happy enough with the outcome.

After modelling the arm, I needed to make the actual mirror, so I first made a cube primitive and resized it properly. I then chamfered opposite sides equally, but made them different to adjacent sides, since that's what they look like on the actual car. I then inset the mirror part a bit and extruded it inward, and I had the wing mirror.

One of the last details I wanted to make was the doors. This was one of the parts that really makes it look like a McLaren P1, so it was the ideal thing to do. I started out by cutting out some segment lines by hand, roughly giving me the shape I wanted for the door. I then extruded the face inward and then chamfered some specific edges to give it smooth edges, rather than this very cubic outline. The door is also split into two parts, so I connected two of the sides and again used the inset tool to get another part of the door, smoothed it all out, and it was done.

This took a bit longer than it may seem since I did have to take quite a bit of time making sure the edges were smoothed the right amount, but I think the result is great. It was after modelling the door that I also smoothed the top of the door that stretches from wheel to wheel, giving it a more rounded look like the car has in the real world.

After finishing everything on the base model, I first unwrapped all the parts of the car, before grouping the body, wheels, wing mirror parts, headlights and rearlights together and adding a mirror modifier to the group. After adjusting the settings a bit, I had made a car with two sides, all unwrapped and ready to be textured.

All that was left before exporting the model was to assign the materials in the material editor. I did this, and gave each part a specific colour so you can see the varying parts a bit easier. I think overall, the model looks pretty good, and I'm happy with the outcome of my first car model. I finished it, keeping well within the maximum poly count of 3000, which was actually quite a bit easier than I expected.

There are a few things that could've been a bit better, though. One is the fact that the windows are very goofy-looking. I left them very basic and just went with the shape they got when I made the roof and door shapes. I think ideally, they should've had a little more detail, since they stick out as being the part to have the least amount done to it. Additionally, I think the shape is a bit off from the real McLaren P1. Obviously, I don't want to make it exactly 1-to-1, but I think if I put a bit more effort into the windows and roof, it would look significantly better.

Designing the Car

After finally completing the model of the car, I had a couple of weeks left to complete the actual, main task of this project. Yes, for some reason, basically everyone was modelling cars for weeks on end, leaving very little time remaining to create a few select liveries for said car, since that is what we are mostly being marked on. I feel this is a bit ridiculous, since we haven't been given a large amount of time to prepare, or a whole lot of varying modelling lessons, especially regarding one model as large as a car. Nevertheless, I finished it, and as I've already said, I'm quite pleased with how it looks, especially considering I kept it under the 3000 poly count.

Going into the design process, I know I have a limited amount of time to complete this project, so I need to choose some simple and quick designs that I can put together decently well for liveries. To start, I thought it was a good idea to get a base coat for everything, since I probably wouldn't be coating the entire car with designs, so I needed glass textures, metal textures, and everything in between to get a base car looking good.

Future me here, personally, this is my favourite design out of everything I whipped up, but I don't think I can claim this as a livery, unfortunately. I think it somewhat resembles a realism livery, since it's more what you'd expect to see on a real car.

Final Livery Choice & Evaluation

After a quick few weeks of work, I finally have finished this project, and what a rollercoaster ride it's been. From doing lots of artist research, to modelling and texturing my first car with some questionable livery designs, I think I've learnt a lot and improved my skills a lot.

In regard to my final outcomes and choice, I thought my second design based on some graffiti work done by Keith Haring was my best. Although in real life I wouldn't have necessarily chosen this exact design, I probably put the most effort into this one, and with a bit more time, could look a lot better. I initially thought that this colour design would work really well, but after completing it, it clearly looks a bit worse that what I had initially imagined. Although orange and green are close to opposites on the colour theory wheel, a nice blue would've probably been better, and in hindsight, fitted the McLaren vehicle design better. Moreover, I eventually just started drawing random pictures all over the car to fill in the gaps I was seeing, so the whole image becomes a bit of a mess. I didn't use many original designs of my own either, but I'm pleased enough with the outcome.

Regarding what I thought went best in this project, I think it has to be the model. I, as well as everyone else (that was actually doing modelling), spent the majority of our time modelling the car, and then rushed to make the liveries. Although that wasn't the core objective given to us by the brief, it did play a fairly large factor, and in my opinion a better one, so I'm not too worried about the time taken. The model as a whole was a great success, especially after my first attempt that I quickly gave up, which I thought was quite smart, since I don't have a lot of modelling experience. Sometimes that's just what you need to improve. The finalised model very closely resembles that of a real McLaren P1, so I'm happy. Keeping it within the 3000 poly count was also something I was a bit nervous about, since I've never considered worrying about that before. Overall, it wasn't too bad, and kept me reminding myself to make everything the most efficient way I could at this time to keep within the set limits.

Some things in this project that didn't go quite so well may be kind of obvious with the practical outcomes, but there's also quite a large part in the blog work, which I will start with. Toward the beginning of the project, we were tasked to research a large variety of artists that are very prolific across certain art movements to give us ideas for the final designs. Although this was started relatively early, I don't think I full finished this until at least halfway through. Although this isn't such a big deal, and could be considered good since I was having to think about it for a lot longer, so I could keep ideas alive for the liveries, this did drastically decrease the time I had for the practical stuff. I believe I mostly took a while because it wasn't something I was really considering to be of much impact and was incredibly boring for someone that isn't too artistic, but it became clear by the end that at least having some sort of ideas floating around opens up opportunities to designs that I would not have considered otherwise. I think the main other thing that didn't go quite as well was the creation of the final liveries. None of them look that great, and although I would probably say I would 99% of the time prefer a bog-standard one colour finish on my car, it's not to say that I may have created something with more meaning and beauty(?) behind it. I was also a bit stuck on what to do for my final design, so just went with cubism and made something that looked nothing like cubism. Obviously, out of the three, my second and overall favourite is more likely to be looked at and known to be inspired by some certain art piece by the uniqueness of it. However, the others don't in any way in my opinion.

Overall, I don't think this project has gone too badly, though. I unfortunately had no time to do any of the extension tasks, but at least I completed everything else quite decently. I should've cracked on with the researching part a bit more to be able to focus in on the proper practical side of the project, but in a way that was slightly helpful. The car model was a great success, and I think I would be able to make a lot better designs another time after learning more and developing my skills.

TWC
7366