How to Create Volume in Car Drawings

How to create volume in your car drawings and make them more dimensional and three-dimensional using simple and accessible methods?

The answer is actually quite straightforward, and in this article we’ll break it down step by step.

Our team will share years of experience in automotive drawing and design and explain how to achieve a convincing result in the simplest possible way.

The truth is that drawing a car is not very different from drawing any other object – the differences are mostly in the details and small structural nuances.

The core principles of drawing stay the same regardless of what you’re depicting.

When you draw anything, including a car, you’re creating the illusion of a three-dimensional form on a two-dimensional surface, and there are several proven methods for doing this that have been used for hundreds, and even thousands, of years.

Below, we’ll go through each of these methods in a clear and practical way, with examples and exercises.

Light and Shadow

The first and most fundamental principle of creating volume in any drawing – including car drawings – is light and shadow.

It’s the contrast between light and dark areas that makes a car, or any object, look three-dimensional rather than flat.

So how do you create this light-and-shadow effect?

The process is fairly simple. Start with the shadow areas and apply either hatching or a solid tone, depending on the technique you’re using, to the parts of the object that are not hit by direct light.

Shade these areas evenly, making sure the strokes follow the form of the surface – use curved strokes on rounded parts and straight strokes on flat planes.

Even this step alone will already add noticeable volume compared to a purely line-based drawing with no shading.

If you’re working with color, the approach is the same.

Darken the areas that are not directly lit, and you’ll immediately see the car start to look more dimensional.

On the opposite side, keep the light areas – those facing the light source – much lighter. Either avoid shading there altogether or apply it very subtly.

This contrast between shadowed and illuminated areas is what helps you to create the sense of volume and three-dimensional form in your car drawings, even at this early stage of the process.

Cast Shadows

This point is still related to light and shadow, but we prefer to treat it as a separate section and discuss it on its own, because this single method can dramatically change the overall impression of a drawing.

If you draw an object and don’t add even a basic cast shadow beneath it, the object may appear to be floating in space – whether it’s a simple sphere or a complex car, the effect is the same.

A cast shadow placed under the object gives the car a sense of weight and physical presence.

It also makes the interaction between light and shadow on the object itself feel more complete and believable.

The cast shadow should sit directly beneath the car and also appear under any parts that extend outward, such as side mirrors or other protruding elements.

Midtones and Smooth Transitions

The next, slightly more advanced step is adding midtones and smoother transitions.

If you already know how to create basic light-and-shadow contrast, this is the natural stage for making your car drawings look even more realistic and dimensional.

The main volume created by light and shadow is usually enough to give a drawing a three-dimensional feel, but in reality we don’t see the world as a set of pure light and dark areas.

Between the darkest shadows and the brightest highlights, there are many midtones and soft transitions.

Even modern cameras and video sensors don’t fully capture the complete tonal range our eyes perceive, although they produce very smooth images.

When drawing – whether traditionally or digitally – you can recreate these tonal shifts by hand.

If you’re working with pencil in black and white, build these transitions using layered hatching, adjusting the tone depending on how much light reaches each area and on the material of the surface.

For example, wheels will almost always appear darker than headlights, even if both are lit by the same light source.

Try to include as many subtle tonal variations as possible. Step back from your drawing from time to time and look at it from different angles.

This helps you better judge the balance of tones and achieve a more convincing sense of depth and realism.

Linear Perspective

The next method that helps you to create volume and realism to a car drawings is linear perspective.

So what is linear perspective?

In real life, objects appear smaller as they move farther away from us, and this effect needs to be reflected in a drawing.

Parts of the car that are closer to the viewer should appear larger than those that are farther away. This size difference is what creates depth and makes the drawing feel three-dimensional.

When you draw a car in a three-quarter view or from any angle where multiple sides are visible, applying linear perspective becomes especially important.

Without it, the vehicle can look flat or distorted. Perspective affects not only the overall size of different parts but also the line weight.

Elements closer to the viewer should be drawn with slightly thicker lines, while distant parts should use thinner lines.

This contrast strengthens the sense of depth, and we’ll return to this idea in more detail a bit later.

Form Overlap

A slightly more complex but still very accessible method to create volume in your car drawings is form overlap.

In real life, most objects around us are not transparent – when one object is positioned in front of another, it partially covers it. Our brain naturally reads this overlap as depth and volume.

In car drawings, this effect appears when one part overlaps another.

For example, fenders overlapping the wheels, a side mirror covering part of the window frame, or one body panel passing in front of another.

These overlapping shapes immediately make the composition feel more realistic, dimensional, and natural.

This method is easy to understand and apply, and it works especially well alongside linear perspective, reinforcing the sense of depth in your drawing.

Contour and Line Weight

Earlier, we touched on the role of line thickness in creating volume, and now let’s look at it in more detail.

Line weight is closely connected to linear perspective and plays an important role in strengthening the sense of depth.

As mentioned before, lines that are closer to the viewer should be thicker and more contrasty than lines that recede into the distance.

Our brain reads thicker, darker lines as being closer, while thinner, lighter lines appear farther away.

This effect is also related to atmospheric perspective, which we can observe in the real world.

If you look at objects that are several miles away, you’ll notice they appear lighter and less contrasty than those nearby.

By varying line thickness and contrast in your drawing, you’re recreating this same effect on paper, helping the car look more spatial and realistically placed in depth.

Depth-Based Detailing

Another essential part of both linear and atmospheric perspective is varying the level of detail across different depth planes.

As you’ve probably noticed, any element that is closer to us is seen more clearly than one that is farther away.

By drawing the parts of the car that are closer to the viewer with more precision and detail, and simplifying the parts that are farther away, you add an extra layer of depth and create more volume in your car drawings.

You can observe the same principle in portrait drawing, where the eyes, nose, and mouth are usually rendered with more detail than the ears or hair.

In photography and video, this effect appears through focus and blur – elements in focus are sharp and detailed, while those outside the focus range appear softer and less defined.

In drawing, we recreate this effect by intentionally increasing detail in the foreground and reducing it in the background.

This contrast in detail helps reinforce spatial depth and makes the overall image feel more realistic and dimensional.

Color and Tone (When Using Color)

On our site, we usually draw in a classic pencil or graphic style, using black, white, and shades of gray to represent form and volume.

However, this is only one approach. Working with color is another powerful method for creating depth in a drawing.

Color itself plays a strong role in how we perceive space. Warm tones tend to feel closer to the viewer, while cool tones appear more distant.

For example, if you want a car to stand out from the background, you can use warmer colors on the vehicle and cooler tones in the surroundings.

The same principle applies when drawing a car in a three-quarter view. Parts of the vehicle that are closer to the viewer can be rendered in more saturated and warmer tones, while areas that recede into the distance can be slightly less saturated or cooler.

This subtle shift in color helps reinforce depth and makes the drawing feel more three-dimensional.

Exercises

Now let’s move on to specific exercises that will help you learn how to add volume to your car drawings.

First of all, it’s important to go through the entire process of drawing a car from start to finish, applying all the principles discussed in this article.

In our lesson on how to draw a car, we break down each stage of creating a vehicle drawing and show how these methods are used in practice.

This allows you to see clearly how volume is built and how light shading is added step by step.

Next, move on to our lesson on how to draw a realistic car to dive deeper into more advanced techniques for creating volume using light and shadow.

And to reinforce these skills and look at car drawing from a different angle, we recommend our lesson on drawing a car in perspective, where we focus on linear and atmospheric perspective and demonstrate how to add a proper cast shadow.