Sketching... all day, every day.

I recently finished a contract job so I have all the time in the world to do what I want now. I’ve started to spend more time sketching and improving my skills, hoping to land another design job soon. I’ll be sketching more product designs soon… I realize that I quite love concept art/designs.

*All tips and criticism are welcome to help me improve faster :smiley:

More sketches via adachiu.me



Hi adachiu,

The shark sketches are wonderful!

Where was your previous contract, and what were your responsibilities?

Thanks Sam! My contract was with Rogers Communications Inc. and the City of Vancouver. My design team including me was a total of 3 people — I was involved in every stage of the project because the team was so small. My main responsibilities included the following: ideation sketches, Solidworks CAD modelling, full-scale prototyping, user-testing, info graphics, presentation, model making (3D print scale models) and all CAD renderings of the design in KeyShot. It was a great learning experience! :slight_smile:

Took a short break from sketching non-living things so here’s another animal study. I’m trying to diversify what I sketch in order to keep things fresh all the time. :stuck_out_tongue:

Good stuff adachiu,

Reminds me a lot of Andrew Kim’s sketches and layout (which is not a bad thing at all, if you do not mind the comparison). Did you develop your sketching mostly on your own or did you have a good/heavy foundation from school that you went with and refined? I would also like to know how long these types of sketches take you? I say this because I have seen a few peoples’ sketches from Art Center College of Design and they often have a certain stylistic look to them that reminds me of your drawings (though it seems you went to a different school). At any rate, these sketches are very neat/communicative and I am very jealous.

Thanks mroh11,

I do not mind the comparison. I’m still trying to define my sketching style and these explorations are definitely helping me with that. I took sketching courses at Emily Carr University, but to be honest I was teaching myself all the time because the sketching instructors did not show many demos. It’s mostly trial and error plus A LOT of practice. I watched Scott Robertson’s gnomon DVDs and self-taught from there on. Each animal sketch took approx. 25-45 mins. Sometimes I restart if it doesn’t look right so the timing varies. I know I need to practice speeding up when sketching. The vehicle sketches would sometimes take 1-1.5hr because I usually discover new things to add or change during the process. It’s also easy for me to sometimes focus solely on one little detail and spend all the time fixing it. Bad habit? Anyway, thanks for your comment! Hope to get feedback again from you when I post new sketches. All criticism is good for improvement :slight_smile:

Sunday concept sketch inspired by Volkswagen Beetle, hatchback car, and the movie Tron. :stuck_out_tongue:

Does anyone have tips on how to create better reflections?

I would look at images of cars, real cars, and reference sketches/renders done by others that show the effect you want.The simkom sketch site is pretty awesome.

Cars often show a fairly consistent, and in some cases, simple, range of highlights, shadow, and reflections.

Canada day car sketch!
Tried to keep the consistent and simple highlights in this sketch, but I think the wind shield and wheels need some more work.

Audi concept for practice. I’m still experimenting with how to start a sketch. Usually I line sketch then paint it in SketchBookPro, but this time I quickly went to color blocking areas. I find that I can finish the loose sketch faster when I use this method.

Critiques would be great !

I would say you’ve found a good work flow there! Your Audi work shows an obvious increase in standard over your Canada Day car.

Thanks! Yeah I think this one shows more improvement over the other one too. Now I’ll try to apply this technique in product sketching and see how that goes.

Behold the Google Space Fleet! hahaha this was fun although it took me at least 3 hours… I just didn’t know when to stop.

Critiques are welcome! Thank you.

New concept sketch done in SketchBookPro. Replaced normal wheels with subtle tank treads/caterpillar tracks. I’m still trying to improve reflections…

Giving footwear sketching a try. Any tips for improving would be greatly appreciated.

Oh and the Tesla truck is another concept design… it’s so fun to create conceptual sketches :laughing:


Sketching feet is what helped me with footwear proportions the most and was recommended to me by both Yo and Dwayne Edwards. Also, I think adding in a ground line is going to help especially in profile view.

Nice work

Time for an update.

The B&O sketch made me realize that I need much more work with ellipses and exploded view sketches! Any tips on effective ways to practice exploded view? (other than practice practice practice)


Love sketching cars when it comes to practicing line work, lighting, etc.

Tried two different approaches with this Bentley. 1) colour blocking 2) line sketch

I prefer the line sketch, but maybe it’s because it looks more loose than the colour blocking one.

Things to work on: WHEELS and its details. I’m too slow at it.

Having fun here with Bentley inspired sketches. :laughing: It looks like a light saber from Star Wars.

I could have continued this further by sketching how it would come out, etc etc, but I’m choosing to move on.


The work has paid off! I’ve been featured on Autodesk’s SketchBook.com :smiley:

http://www.sketchbook.com/news/designing-the-future-by-ada-chiu.html#.Uo2gtJEbq89