Corel Magazine July 1996

'58 DODGE

Created by Mike Carroll Jr.
written by Jennifer Campbell

The Silicon Valley isn't what it used to be.

Not to long ago, the area was called Santa Clara Valley, and in the 1950s big cars filled drive-ins at all hours of the night. This is the valley that Mike Carroll Jr. likes to paint. Having been born in the midst of this decade, he studied archived photographs to lend the accuracy of his paintings of historical Santa Clara for a series titles "The Fabulous Fifties."

Carroll's initial works were photo-reaslistic scenes done in acrylic on canvases. Needing a template, he would project a slide of the scene onto a canvas and sketch the outline. He would then fill the scene with vibrant paints. Happy with the results, Carroll decided to promote his work by offering prints to the public. So about four years ago, he bought his first computer with the intention of scanning his original artwork and producing prints.

After being confronted with the large amount of file space and RAM required for this type of high-resolution output, Carroll turned to CorelDraw. "With little time and effort, I found Draw provided the tools necessary to create vector illustrations with a clean look that could be printed at any size," Carroll said. "I decided to redraw my paintings in CorelDraw, with the first finish piece depicting a drive-in restaurant complete with neon sign and cars," he said. Having used CorelDraw 3 extensively, he entered the image in Corel's 5th annual World Design Contest (see page 47).

In this years contest, Carroll's image of a 1958 Dodge won the September/October 1995 award in the Technical Drawings and Graphs category. His inspiration came from the cover of an antique automobile magazine. "I approached this piece as I would a canvas painting," he said. "To get a bitmapped template for maintaining proportions, I traced the outline of the car and made marks for the headlight and tires before scanning it."

Carroll paid special attention to the little details, like the tread and the reflection on the headlights, because, he believes, this extra effort makes an illustration much more realistic (figures 1-4).

To fill out the body of the car, he used fountain fills and blends to represent highlights and shadows. And the large amount of chrome on the front end called for creative shapes to hold reflections of the sky and ground.

As the car took shape, Carroll organized his layers so that the areas could be hidden or locked. While flushing out the final shape composition, Carroll placed layers behind and in front of the driver, who could be taken out or given passengers. The driver, originally drawn at a much larger size so more detail could be added, first sported a more serious expression (figure 5) that gave a smile after Carroll received a few passing remarks from friends.

In a relatively short period of time, Carroll has got quite comfortable with working with his computer. He began his digital work at with CorelDraw 3 and now uses version 5 to produce brochures and prints of his artwork. He even promotes his work through his personal web page, where he also offers services in web design, illustration, and his new endeavor, 3D graphics. Clearly, Carroll's pursuit of the Santa Clara Valley of yesteryear has brought him closer to the Silicon Valley of today.

Mike Carroll Jr.
PO Box 2130
Santa Clara, CA 95055
e-mail: mcarroll@best.com
Web site: http://www.best.com/~mcarroll