Hello, friends! Creating your own livery in CarX Drift Racing 2 is an opportunity to create a truly unique car that will always stand out from the crowd and catch the eye.
Where can you find inspiration? Where to start?
We have prepared extensive material that will help you understand all the intricacies of creating liveries and bring your artistic vision to life.
Body shape
In fact, many factors that affect the final livery have already been taken into account for you: the line of the glazing, the fenders above the arches, the stampings – all together they form a special body shape, representing a compositionally beautiful and complete object.
Such lines are called form-defining. Most often, they are interconnected and subject to a single logic, which, once analyzed, can provide a good idea for graphics and color breakdown.
How exactly should form-defining lines be used?
There are several options: as a hard border for color transitions or as a guide for aligning text or other graphic elements.
Also, a section of the body with interesting plasticity can be an interesting element of the livery in itself and does not need additional graphic elements. Or, in some cases, it can be further emphasized—for example, by placing straight stripes on the curve of the body.
For example, parallel lines were used on the Rattlesnake to further highlight the plastic of the hood and side panels. With a shift – to further show the depth of the front arch.
And in this livery for the Nomad GT, parallel lines are used to further emphasize the rounded shape of the rear wing.
Body elements
A distinctive feature of the Thor I8 body is the cutout between the rear wheel arch and the overhanging rear pillar. The entire design of this livery was based on highlighting this element with a bright pink (accent) color.
It is worth noting that the design of classic bodies relied more on proportions, while modern ones relied more on elements. Consequently, the liveries of classic cars are generally simpler.
Additional references
Of course, to improve your skills in creating liveries, you need to have a broad outlook—inspiration can be found in different historical eras and different racing series.
It is also useful not just to look at liveries, but also to analyze how they fit on the body and what role each graphic element plays.
Dynamics in livery
The tilt of the main elements of the livery towards the front gives the livery a dynamic look.
The strictly horizontal arrangement of elements creates a static look.
However, tilting elements towards the rear of the car is undesirable, as this technique directs the dynamics in the opposite direction to the movement of the car.
Angles
The key elements of the angle for the player are the rear bumper, trunk, rear window, and, of course, the transition from the rear to the side. For example, when creating a livery for a Spec category car, this part is worked out first, since this is how the player will see it most of the time.
However, the angle that attracts the most attention and makes the livery stand out is 3/4 from the front. This is the first thing people evaluate when choosing a car.
Colors
The more colors there are, the more difficult it is to create a good palette. For an interesting design, all you need is 3-4 well-chosen colors.
The livery palette is composed according to the Base-Nuance-Accent principle:
- Base – (red in the example) – occupies most of the color space.
- Nuance – an additional color (gray in the example) is most often determined by the key sponsor or the main graphic element.
- Accent – a bright color that occupies the least amount of color space. It can be used to highlight points of interest on the livery (purple in the example).
Old and new colors
In automotive culture, it is valued when a car corresponds to its era. This can also be reflected in colors. The chemical industry is not standing still, and over time, brighter and more saturated pigments appear in paints.
If you want to give the livery a more “retro” style, it is worth reducing the saturation of colors and using warmer shades. Cold, bright shades, on the contrary, will “modernize” your livery.
Materials
The choice of materials largely depends on the shape of the car body. It is important to understand two things: how much the material glitters and how the glitter “fits” the shape of the car.
For example, chameleon and pearlescent effects work very well on rounded shapes, but do not look good on sharp edges—the brain has difficulty perceiving sharp color transitions, which are especially noticeable in strict geometric shapes.
The opposite is true for matte materials—they work well on sharp edges but do not convey the plasticity of rounded surfaces, which become unreadable without additional graphics.
References
History and reputation play a huge role in the perception of a car. The history of the livery itself and the context are perhaps even more important than the design itself.
Using references greatly simplifies the work: it is better to spend half an hour searching for references than two hours looking for good combinations manually.
When selecting references for liveries, it is worth paying attention to several factors:
- It is worth looking for different liveries on one specific car model: this will help you quickly see different options for the composition of sponsor stickers and graphic elements that emphasize the shape of the body.
- It is also worth looking at different liveries in the color palette you need (or different liveries of a specific sponsor) on different cars from different racing disciplines.
- It is always a good idea to save liveries that you like for one reason or another—unusual color combinations, small details, or the composition of elements.
- Try to pay attention not only to direct references, but also to artistic solutions in completely different places: movies, games, advertising, painting, and the media.
In general, it is always useful to have a large database of various references that you can periodically return to and draw inspiration from for your ideas.
Enjoy the game!
