NASCAR Racing 2003 - A Car Painting Dynasty
 

A few things have converged into me starting this dynasty.

1. I went to a live race in Richmond last May with some family. I had never watched more than 5 minutes of a NASCAR race before. I was instantly hooked. I've watched probably 80% of the races since.

2. I started getting interested in a NASCAR game/sim. After digging, it became clear that NASCAR Racing 2003 was the far and away leader in quality. However, generally you have to pay a significant markup on ebay or the like for this game (like sometimes over $100 for the game). I eventually gave up last fall trying to get a copy.

3. cmp started backup the FOFC Spring Cup Series. I signed up for Season 2 after slacking Season 1. (Link here - FOFC Sprint Cup Series - Season 2 - Race #2 Buffalo Wild Wings 400 Posted - Front Office Football Central. When choosing a car I found it frustrating that it could be tough to find a sponsor that fit me (or my brother lordscarlet who is also playing) let alone with a number that hasn't already been taken. This was highlighted even more with the Young Gun series.

4. I've off and on done some stuff with logo/helmet/uni design for FOF leagues. Always been a side interest of mine. On that same lines, part of what I've come to like about NASCAR is the dramatic variety in paint designs for cars with really an endless possibility of options.

5. RendeR generously offered up his copy of NASCAR 2003 for a reasonable price to anyone interested, and I took him up on it.

So, I decided to start dabbling with "Painting Cars". I do not yet have my copy of the game, but I've started using Gimp 2 (GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program) an open source drawing program to get things started.

This will be my way of tracking what I'm doing, give some progress, get feedback on cars, and hopefully eventually do cars for other FOFC members in the Sprint Cup/Young Guns leagues.

Unfortunately I didn't think of this until I was through a bit, so my first couple of cars won't have quite the "In-Progress" stuff that I will do later.

CHARLIE'S SOAP CAR - INITIAL THOUGHTS

Because he had a harder time finding a "fitting" car and because I wanted to rope him into giving me feedback, I first did a car for my brother lordscarlet (Doug Moore in the Sprint Cup Series).

So, the initial discussion was around who the sponsor would be.

His current car is an Apple car. This is a good fallback, but a million people could be doing Apple. One of the beauties of this is that we have the full array of choices, so we can pick something more unique.

After going through a few possibilities including Miracle Gro, Bon Ami, Apple, Thom's of Maine, and some others I can't remember we ended up on Charlie's Soap (http://www.charliesoap.com, a vegetable based, biodegradable soap product that he is a fan of.

The Charlie's Logo:




I also had to find a template to use. So, I went onto nnracing.com and found a 2013 Ford Fusion template for the latest Sprint Cup mod. [note: Boy do I hope this works with cmp's mod, but I think he's using the latest and greatest so I should be good].

The template looks like this:

CHARLIE'S SOAP CAR - ATTEMPT #1

So I started with little guidance from lordscarlet. All I did was try to take a stab at using this logo and making a NASCARish look. I used the #33 that he already has in the FOFC Sprint Cup series - easier not to have conflict. I know that 16 would be his ideal number, but The Wii car already has the #16. One nice thing with this is that it's relatively easy to change numbers.

Here was the initial mock-up I came up with:



I liked it, but didn't life it. The numbers are a bit funky because of the method I used to make the black shadow. The 16 colors logo on the fender also doesn't show very well.

So, next step was to show it to lordscarlet and see what he thought.

Charlie's Soap Car Attempt #2

LS is not a NASCAR fan. As such, he's not as tied to making the cars "look like a NASCAR Car". And actually, as a general rule, he aesthetically prefers simple - so more like old NASCAR/other Race cars.

So, he had a few thoughts:

1. He'd like a cream color with the green, rather than white and green. The idea being that he pictures the Charlie's Soap logo on a tan colored burlappy sack.
2. He suggested an offset racing stripe.
3. He didn't like the number either.
4. He pointed out I forgot the number on the roof.
5. Preferred a solid color.

So, I did what I could. The one that I could not make happen was the cream color. Basically, I'm not talented enough to make it so that the white interior to the logo is cream, so it would look really weird.

Here is what I came up with:




Would love some feedback!

Your game is on its way Wade, my sincere apologies for how long its taking. I got wrapped up in life and it went out late. SORRY!!

Oh, not a problem at all - clearly I've found a way to occupy the time ;).

Awesome wade. FOFC Sprint Cup already 1000 times more interesting than the real thing.

Dola, the off-set stripe is kind of cool.

TiVO Car - Wade Moore

Next up I wanted a car for myself.

I like the Chick-Fil-A #38 that I picked out for FOFC Spring Cup, but unfortunately the white/red color scheme is so similar to several other cars, that it's very hard to pick out in cmp's videos.

So, I thought about a product that would fit me. For some reason I quickly jumped on TiVo.

TiVo Logo:





The Plan:

I wanted something that stood out. I also wanted to get a little more creative and do more than just a hood logo, with a mostly solid color, and then some numbers. Wanted to branch out a LITTLE.

I started with an all-black car to look kind of like the TiVo itself. I wasn't in love with it (I don't have an image saved off of this), and then lordscarlet had a good suggestion - use Orange like the cardboard box that the TiVo comes in.

I liked that, then played with ideas on how to bring something else in. I thought of the ffwd/rwnd arrows that the TiVo interface uses.

Here is what I came up with:

TiVo Car Attempt #2:




Thoughts:

I've had it suggested that the hood looks pretty bare. I've considered trying to put the thumbs up/thumbs down icon there. I'd be open to other ideas.

Thoughts?

OPEN FOR REQUESTS

I will take requests if someone wants me to try and do a car for them.

I make no promises about speed, but I'd like to do some more of this. Info I need:

1. Number
2. Primary Sponsor
3. Any secondar sponsors (the stickers I have on there now are the Sprint Cup sponsors that come with the template)
4. Color scheme
5. Any particular thoughts on looks

I am no artist. I have a working knowledge of how to use gimp/photoshop and can make stuff happen. I'm not necessarily going to be able to do the detail curved/etc color deviations that some NASCAR cars have. Just be forewarned that ask for what you want, but I'll be honest if I don't think I can pull it off.

Thanks for this Wade, those cars look good. I might have one for you eventually but I have to think about it for a bit.

My first product idea is for an AXE (for Men) car.
#22
I'd prefer the car to be purple, predominantly purple, maybe with a black, silver or white as a secondary color.
Here's their main logo:

Do you have a preference on the shade of purple?

Not a deep purple. More a lavender feel.

Yeah, cause he's you know...girly....

Just so you know korme, likely won't touch this until this weekend - I've got a crazy week going right now.

It's all good wade, no problems.


Trying to stand out from the other cars or something like that. Also, I have purple sheets. Ladies like purple :cool:

not on their men. other MEN like purple on their men.

I might have a car for you to make here soon.

I'd like to give Rip Lickingood's car a little more personal touch. A #0 Krispy Kreme/Cheerwine Ford would be awesome.

Here are the logos:



Green, red, and white rule the day. Stylistic elements that come to mind are the pattern on the KK box:



and bubbles, though I like the KK polka-dotting better. Of course, do what you think is most fun.

So, Axe...

I found a template that I think looks a bit like "Axe Style".

First I tried the mostly purple like Korme asked for.

Here is what I came to:




Then, I started looking at axe stuff, and thought this might look more "Axe Like"




Thoughts?

One thing I'll mention, in game it's much "Shinier". I haven't learned yet how to get an actual 3d image of the car unfortunately.

Although, ugh, just realized this design won't work with the mod cmp is using.

:sigh:... one frustration with this game.

Although, hah, the mod he's talking about using next year goes with the mod I used for the first two.

So confusing.

Either way, let me know what you think of the general idea, even if I need to switch it to a different template.

The black design is really cool.

I like the second design better, the first one seems a bit plain... however, I'm concerned with it just blending in with the rest of the cars. Maybe swapping the purple/black for black/purple on the second?

Appreciate the effort though, no doubt

I was thinking about that this morning - I'll give that a shot.

To get a 3d shot you can do 2 things:


Go into the editor and click on 3d preview, you can then grab teh car and turn it every which way to get a good shot. Screen shot it and there you go.

OR Go into the player setup, where you pick YOUR car and scroll througth the cars and screen shot it.


OR

Put all your cars into a race, use a null car for yoursellf. Start the race and flip through the camera views on each car to get a good shot of it at any given point. Screenshot again.


Screenies can be taken with I believe pressing print screen. Or maybe its F12? I forget.

Well, I guess I meant I can't figure out a way to do it without doing that ;).

Apparently people use 3dstudio max and are able to get better pics.

But yeah, I should just do that ;).

Photoshop is ur fwend

Ok, so..

I reversed the black and purple.

I also took in-game screenshots of both.






Still worried about how this will all translate on different mods, but anyway.. we'll deal with that later ;)

One thing I could see is that korme may want a brighter purple.

Let me try that.

Hrmm..

Having trouble finding a lighter purple that doesn't look pink to me..

As I re look at these, I think I like the first purple one the best personally. The biggest thing I don't like is the number. I tried to get a font that kind of matches the axe logo, but the font is quite wide, meaning it's hard to get it to fill up space. I may try a different font.

Otherwise I'm not sure what else to play with.

First purple Car is real nice....Are you able to stretch the number on the roof without changing the font or will that make it too wide?

In theory I could "stretch" it, but I can't increase the font size without it running too wide. I generally try not to stretch cause the proportions often get funky, but in theory that could work.

But yeah, you're hitting on my concern. Usually the number "fills" the roof, and it's just not even close on this.

Excellent, excellent mr. moore. I will def. use the the first "screenshot" car for next season.

That purple is fine. Usually, though, in my experience if you want to lighten purple you just need a duller shade, not a lighter one.

Cool.

I'll have to talk with cmp and maybe post on some NR2003 board. This whole template/mod thing is confusing the heck out of me. This car may or may not work with what cmp is using, I'm really not sure.

If not, I'll use the basic concept on the right template when I figure it out.

Just seeing this. Haha, fun.

So, I got to moving on the Krispy Kreme Car.

I had phase one ready to post, but FOFC was down.

Here's where I was at phase one:



I had the thought of the green ribbons to tie into the green border on the box lid. It looked right on the flat image file, but when wrapped on the car I just didn't think it looked quite right.

So, I moved onto phase 2 and eventually phase 3 since I had time. Phase 3 incorporated the cheerwine logo onto the trunk.

Phase 3 Front




Phase 3 Back






So the two main things:

1. The Ribbon on the front cuts off some on the very front fender above the wheel well. Because of how the flat file is built, it's going to be a pita to "fix" that. I may end up just having to leave it rather than wanting to scream trying to fix it.

2. I couldn't remember what number was requested, so I couldn't do the number. I did play around some with what is basically a KK font. I think it's going to look terrible, especially seeing it's #0, so only one number. So I'll have to play around with other fonts. I'm drawn to using the "same" font, but I have to realize that's not usually what they really do in Nascar.


A few things I'm thinking about:

1. Depending on how the number looks, I may take the dots off of the roof. Not sure if I'd then make the roof KK Green, KK Red, or White.

2. There's a part of me that thinks the KK logo may be slightly small. The problem is, the dots are proportional. So just making it bigger may not be that simple.

I love the way the hood and ribbon look, but I think I would agree with you that they don't need to be everywhere else (esp. the roof). Might give a little more room to work in red accents?

Thanks for playing around with this - I hope it's fun for you!

Yes, it's a ton of fun for me.

Getting stuff from you guys keeps me from having to try to make up stuff at random ;).

Is the Cheerwine Red and KK red the same shade? If so I would try that on top or maybe the KK green.

Yup - exact same color. This is my thought as well. Gonna try that while I watch the Richmond race that I have recorded.

Hey, Wade, have you played around with this at all? Just curious. ;)

Here is what I'd like for Chris Snow to drive:

Chevrolet

#4 unless its taken then #40

Sponsor: Exide batteries

Image for scheme: http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2706/4...8f5cdf27_m.jpg

There are other images on teh web of the car, it as the one driven by Geoff Bodine back in the early 90's

Hope you can make it work!

Bumping in the hopes of getting my batteries on ;)