I think my latest paint (BTCC Audi) took around 20 - 30 hours. But then I had to make almost every logo from scratch. It goes considerably faster when I have the most part of the logos needed already done 
Anywhere from 10 hours to 50+hours
Depends on complexity and what is needed to replicate.
I would think 80% of my paint time is making logos.
[AB]
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This for me. Most the designs I choose I already have a handful of logos but still a bunch more to make. Liveries are normally easy, itās the hours and hours trying to make accurate logos that eats up the time
Iād say I spend between 14-60+ hours on a design. Itasha styled designs might take alot longer depending on the complexity of the characters and overall design, and whether I draw the characters myself before recreating them in Forza. I did this for my first FM6 design and the whole process took around 3 months to complete.
Finding good refrence shots of the logos and making them takes up the majority of my time.
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iād say my designs take me about 12 to 20 hours for a full car designā¦
the āsimpleā layouts (in which i use already painted characters and logoās) i have done lately take my 1 to 2 hours , but can be as fast as 30 minutesā¦
the fastest i could put down the layers was 300-400 layers an hourā¦ but that was in fm2 (i think the editor has become a bit slower and i have tooā¦ a bitā¦)
Thanks again everyone.
I started on the new license plate last night. Everything started fine but then I started running into problems. There was no font that was correct for the state name. I decided to use one that was close. I actual looks very good and if you didnāt know what the correct font was you would think it was correct even if it was sitting beside the correct plate. I ran into a problem with the aspect ratio being wrong for the state name. I decided to fix that later. The next issue was there is a picture on the plate. It only has two colors. I thought I could easily draw it. It turns out Iām not a very good artist/copier. However, after messing with it for about an hour, parts of the picture were beginning to look correct. I think I have to learn how to put the various shapes available together to create the desired image.
How does everyone make logos? Iāve been staring at the plate on my notebook computerās screen and trying to copy it in FM6ās paint editor. Iām beginning to think I should print the plate out with some tick marks along the edge to give me an idea of how everything is lined up.
Is there a way to change the background color of the vinyl editor to make the grid more visible and to make images stand out a little more. Iāve gotten to the point where I start with the shapes white or black and then change them to the correct color when they are finally all lined up. I also found using white and blank useful when combining two shapes together to make a third shape. The contrast helps to show me which shape needs adjusting.
This is a learning process for me and is becoming quite fun. Who ever thought that painting cars in a racing game could be called fun? I didnāt until I started getting serious about it.
There is a specific vinyl on one of the tabs, Iām not looking at it, so canāt be more specific, but itās nothing more than lines vertical and horizontal crosshatching. Simply apply it, copy it and apply again, and then resize it until you have it as you want it. Then you can use a grid on your original picture and duplicate with references if that helps.
READ this ā> http://forums.forza.net/turn10_postsm408995_-FM-TUTORIAL--Vinyl-Screenshot-Guide.aspx#post_408995
Many painters use Photoshop as a reference to re-create accurate logos. The grid layout in Photoshop is identical to that of the paint booth in game (grids of squares divided up by four smaller squares). Find a large, clear, high-res image of the logo you want to re-create on the web and load it into Photoshop. Line up the bottom and left edges of the image in PS with the grid lines. This will give you an accurate reference for re-creating the same logo in game with the same size, spacing, etc. as the actual logo. So if a part of your logo is 2 squares wide and 3 1/2 squares tall in Photoshop, make it 2 squares wide and 3 1/2 squares tall in game. Rinse and repeat until you have an accurate logo.
For color-matching, use the eye-dropper tool in PS and click on a color in the image youāre trying to copy. Open the Color Picker window in PS (usually on the right hand side). Note the H S B values (hue, saturation, brightness) of the color you clicked on with the eye-dropper. The H value (hue) is a number of degrees. Divide the value shown by 360. The result is the hue value from the Color Fine Tune option in the paint booth. Then just enter the saturation and brightness values as they are in PS in the Color Fine Tune screen as well and you now have the exact color.
And youāve already learned another trick I use. Coloring logos is my last step. I create logos in black and white for better contrast and then change colors as the last step.
There are tons more techniques out there ā¦ but maybe these couple can help get you started a bit.
i can not do that. Measuring shapes and angles seems to much like my day job. Everything goes by an eye to eye acuracy with me. Maybe it shows on my designs and logos, i dont know. But the most joy from making logoās i get by guessing angles and sizes. So sometimes ive done half the logo before i find out, that it cant be at that angle because it makes the spacing impossible. Needles to say i can spend an hour or two on any logo and a couple of evenings a week for a design.
There are a number of ways to go about it, Wildkatās method is rather good if you have a second screen.
My method is a little more analogue:
- Find a hi-res image of the logo online.
- Print onto a sheet of A3 paper.
- Stick sheet to TV screen with masking tape (which leaves no marks).
- Use printed logo as reference for the shapes under it, drawing everything in black and white.
- Once the basic shapes are done, remove sheet, make logo full-screen and ādo clean-upā (lining up shapes, getting curves/edges right etc.)
- Final step is colouring, I use this and this for reference.
As you can see itās quite effective, but takes a lot of time:
you can spend 2+ hours one just 1 logo so it just depends on what you are trying to acheive
If you have a catalog of logos done, it can be as little a 2 minutes. Simplicity is another factor. Some guys have immensely intricate work in here, easily 40+ hours.
2 minute paint for a club race below.
15-20 hours on this mural of c3po, n r2d2 so far im at around 1700 layers. Iām still tweaking things, n dropping highlights. I did my boba fett car in about 4-5 hrs. I move kinda fast because I do artwork for a living.
I finally finished by second license plate. It is from Arizona. There are a couple of issues with it but it is close enough for me. Apparently is was good enough for other people too. I got a couple of likes for it.
I did the method of printing out the plate with a grid on it. It helped a lot getting everything lined up. I started by trying to make everything perfect. That was a mistake. Once I shrank the image down to the proper size for a car in the game, all the details disappeared. When I noticed this, I cut back on the detail. Once I cut back on the detail, Iād say it took me a couple of hours to finish. This is a little more detailed than most license plate. Drawing the cacti, especially the large one took a little work. The horizon was a little easier to draw.
On to the next license plate after I do some racing. I already have the next license plate picked out. It is rather simple so it should take under an hour.
I finished the next plate. I went outside the US and made a Japanese plate. It is from the Tochigi prefecture, issued by the Utsunoyami district. Why did I choose this plate? If you lived near the Motegi circuit this could be a valid license plate. This plate is valid for a car with an 2000cc or greater engine. It might even be a real license plate. If it is, I apologize to the owner.
I learned a lot about the Japanese license plates and how to create fonts by doing this. The characters to the right of the number 302 is the kanji representation of Utsunoyami, the issuing district. The character to the right of the 20 is a hiragana character that is valid for a privately owned vehicle. The white plate with green letters indicate a privately owned car with an engine displacement over 600cc or a motorbike with displacement under 250cc. The 3 in 302 says the engine size is 2000cc or greater.
The vinyl is called Motegi license plate.