It’s been a very hectic Holiday season and we have been working like crazy!   So I finally have a little downtime before preparing to launch our first educational DVD set on drawing cars in a few weeks! I wanted to start off by bringing up an interesting topic about drawing cars and how it can help reinvent yourself.  It’s an odd connection indeed but bare with me.

How do you keep on top of your game or try to excel above and beyond your expectations?   Competition is stiff….whether you are a student or a professional.  In todays world, you must constantly try to make yourself a valuable player…especially in the automotive field.  So how do you start creating that “value” to not only your employer but more importantly, yourself.  It really doesn’t matter whether you are a student or a professional.   Creating value and self worth works across the board at any age.

Some students have ambitions to excel in their particular field of expertise.  Once they graduate, they work for a company and try to increase their knowledge on the subject matter that they love.  In essence, they seek to build their confidence in the working environment putting to practice what they have learned from college and learning from their colleagues at work.

So what does this have to do with how to draw cars?  Well…how to draw cars in this case is just a metaphor to building your knowledge base and exercising your brain to do something difficult.  On the Driven Mavens blog, we have architects, designers, engineers, drawing hobbyists, students, etc…that have a desire to improve a part of themselves that was either left dormant or were afraid to act on their passion.  Believe it or not, drawing cars, or doing something that you are intimidated about or fearful of, helps to build your confidence!

So why is any of this important?  Well confidence helps you to believe in yourself.  Sometimes it is necessary for you to go above and beyond and redefine who you are.  I have 4 steps that will help you to either redefine or reinvent  yourself which will in turn help you to influence others!

1.  Knowledge -> 2.  Confidence ->3.  Empowerment ->4. Influence -> Change!

1.  KNOWLEDGE:

First step is to acquire knowledge.  Knowledge  helps to keep you informed and builds depth to your ideas and work.  Building your knowledge base can help you improve your understanding of how things work and function.  Without it, leaves you with a sort of ignorance that can prevent your ideas from reaching their unrealized potential.  The more you know the better off you are.  However, you have to have intellectual curiosity so to speak.  You have to essentially want to learn new material constantly.

2.  CONFIDENCE:

Second step is to build your confidence.  The more knowledge you have the more confident it makes you.  Nothing better than feeling that you have a strong grasp of a particular subject matter or several subjects.  To be able to talk about a certain subject because you have researched it so well will build your confidence ten fold!  All you have to do is take an interest, read, and be curious.  Being confident in yourself and your work is crucial for your success.   It’s hard to excel at something and continue marching forward if you constantly think you suck!  However…avoid overconfidence…no one likes working with a “know it all” jerk.

3.  EMPOWER:

Third step is to empower yourself.  Confidence will eventually lead to empowerment!  The more confident you become as a result of acquiring knowledge over the years, the better equipped you are at making key decisions in your life and goals for the future.  This confidence helps you to utilize the strengths within you and EMPOWER you to act! That is totally juice!

4.  INFLUENCE:

Fourth step is to be influential.  You can’t have an impact without having some influence.  With empowerment comes influence.  The more confident you are with what you know and how you present the information to others, leaves you with the ability to influence others!  Seriously….this is so cool!  To be able to influence others due to your own drive, passion, and expertise in your area, is nothing short of utter coolness!  If others can see the passion in you, they feel better about you…as long as you don’t sound like the Sham Wow dude!

CHANGE:

At the end of the day, you will ultimately hope that your hard work and dedication, has some impact.  Maybe you designed a product that made someone’s life a little easier…or you created this sweet illustration that created some emotional response from a viewer.  Perhaps you quite simply “changed” yourself for the better and became what you envisioned yourself to be.

The overall message here  is to do anything in your power to help improve yourself from every perspective; to expose your mind to subjects that are difficult to comprehend but have a hunger and thirst to tackle and learn.  If you are an engineer, learn something new about Industrial Design.  If you are a designer, try to learn something new about engineering.  That is the key to creating VALUE for yourself and build your self confidence.  Even something that seems as disconnected as drawing cars, somehow finds its connection in the overall scheme of building your knowledge because it helps you to appreciate and respect the very discipline of drawing.

Remember …again…. Knowledge -> Confidence ->Empowerment ->Influence -> Change!

Catch you next time!

This week we’re joined by Chris Preuss, Executive Vice President at Hill & Knowlton Strategies and former chief of OnStar. Per usual we’ll get into the news of the week including the sales numbers in the first month of 2012, a rash of Chinese rip-offs and the 50th anniversary of 24 Hours of Daytona. All this and more with John McElroy and Peter De Lorenzo the Autoextremist.

As always, thanks to Autoline for their continued partnership.

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Folks! We have reached 118% and still have a couple days left!  THANK YOU ALL for making this project happen!

We surpassed our goal and could not have done this without everyone’s support.  I would like to add that the campaign will end on Saturday Night, January 14th  at 11:59pm!  If you have not pledged to get the early adopter Kickstarter price, be sure to shoot over to our Kickstarter page and click the link below.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1459036307/how-to-draw-cars-now-two-disc-special-edition?ref=live

Again, a huge  thanks to all that supported the project and helped to make this a success!

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Just wanted to give you all a quick update. We have now reached 61% funding in a weeks time! Thanks to Studio PCK, Carbodydesign, Luciano Bove and just this morning….Autoblog!  They have brought a lot of  awareness about the project to the public!

Special thanks to all the fans that have already contributed to the project.  I truly appreciate your support.

We really want to hit the 100% mark early so if you have not made your pledge, please click the link to back the project!  Thanks for your support and have a great Holiday!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1459036307/how-to-draw-cars-now-two-disc-special-edition?ref=live

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How cool is this? We just got word that Autoblog featured our DVD project on Kickstarter!  Thanks so much to Autoblog for posting the project on  their site!  Autoblog “WE OBSESSIVELY COVER THE AUTO INDUSTRY”

http://www.autoblog.com/2011/12/22/drawing-cars-project-looking-for-kickstarter-funds/

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Special thanks to Marco for hosting the project on his popular Automotive Design Website, Carbodydesign!  Carbodydesign has a phenomenal amount of information from not only design but engineering as well!  Check out the article here!  http://www.carbodydesign.com/2011/12/how-to-draw-cars-now-dvd-set/

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Huge thanks to Hot Rod Designer Brian Stupski for his featured article on How to Draw Cars Now!  Please shoot over to Brian’s website, Problem Child Kustoms to get a visual treat of his unreal Hot Rod Designs and the featured article here!

http://www.problemchildkustoms.com/how-to-draw-cars-now.html
Thanks for your support Brian!

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I hate it when I spend hours on a classic car drawing or rendering only to find out later that it looks like a big piece of turd.  Though going through several terrible renderings and drawings is all part of the learning process, none the less, it is always smart to have a game plan when creating a final piece of art or a conceptual idea.

Working with miniature renderings is a great way to do this!  If any of you remember my article on post it note sketching, then you’ll understand why working with miniatures goes a long way.  Most of the time when working on a drawing or rendering , we tend to go big and try to start creating the final piece right from the start.  Perfecting the art of drawing cars is not easy so you are definitely better off being patient .

Can you imagine creating a large painting and then struggling to figure out your compositions and colors?  You’ll end up spending a lot of money on the supplies and paint only to be disappointed with the results.  So here are some of the reasons why it’s such a good idea to plan things out beforehand:

1.  Less intimidating to work on a smaller scale.  You can do many little renderings or just quick color compositions

2. You can screw up as many times as you want and still feel good about it being part of the process.  You’ll be thinking, “It’s just a little thumbnail so who cares?”

3.  It will allow you to spend less time on the final rendering as you have already worked out the main composition and colors, the rest will be just details

4.  It’s fun.  By chance if it does come out ok, then you have the satisfaction of knowing that you are getting better by the day

Pretty cool huh?  So make sure you decide to start rendering little sketches! You’ll soon find there may be a little gem in there somewhere to blow up and make it a center piece in your room!

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Many of you have been wondering how to pledge.  I created a video that will hopefully clear up some of the confusion.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Time to get serious and accelerate your passion for drawing cars!  Driven Mavens has just launched our first product on the popular crowd funding site, Kickstarter, and we’ll need your support to make this project a reality! Introducing  ”How to Draw Cars Now: Analog Vs Digital Drawing Techniques 2 Disc Special Edition!”   The 2 Disc Special Edition DVD set is an introductory course designed to help train you to acquire the fundamental drawing skills taught in some of the most prominent design schools in the country! It is geared toward two main groups: Hungry design students and aspiring drawing hobbyists serious about accelerating their passion to learn fundamental drawing techniques that can take their own skills to a new level.

What are you going to get? Check out our Kickstarter page for the promo video and to learn more about our product and how you can help fund it by making a pledge here!

From you folks of course!  Remember that poll we conducted a few months ago about tackling some of your biggest hurdles in drawing? If not…I DID!   To recap, here is what your feedback was regarding the content poll!

1.  71% of you wanted to become a pro at sketching and drawing cars!  That is outstanding and a true indication of your drive to learn and excel!

2. Out of the 8 topics in drawing, 40% of you wanted to learn free hand sketching and digital rendering;  and 37% of you wanted to learn analog rendering.

3.  From Free hand sketching topics, a whopping 61% of you wanted to learn loose sketching techniques, 55% sketching accuracy, 42% speed sketching, and thumbnail sketching

4.  Lastly, 59% of you preferred learning to render on Marker paper! So at the end of the day, this DVD is a culmination of your input and my execution!  Hope to see your support on Kickstarter.
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