Drawing TheTin-Can Toucan

While competing in the 1964 Bolivian Rally, the Fiat 500 of Diego Massini and Felipe Zeppo suffered unexpected mechanical problems due to a flock of Tin-Can Toucans descending on their car while briefly paused waiting for the next stage to start. The Tin-Can Toucan is so nick-named due to its perchant to scavenge mechanical parts.

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Next I’m going to go through the process of creating this cartoon.

Initial outline of the car

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I got the idea to use a Fiat 500 after seeing a post on Instagram featuring the car.

I was looking for a car that already looked quite ‘cartoony’, and the Fiat 500 certainly fits the bill.

Adding the toucans

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I referred to a previous drawing of a toucan when drawing the new ones.

Colouring the toucans

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I washed in the colours on a separate layer. You can see the colour overlapping the outline, so I’ll erase any overspilt colour next.

Erasing any excess colour

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I’ve now cleaned up the colour layer. Next I’m going to find a suitable background to use.

Searching for a background

As the cartoon features a rally car, I had a look through some previous cartoons to see if there was a forest scene that I could borrow a background from. I was having trouble finding one that matched the angle of the car, until I stumbled across the following cartoon:

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I thought that I swapped out the river for a road it would fit the bill, but first I removed the characters.

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Now to drain the water for the road.

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Adding the characters to the background

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I’ll keep the car white so that it stands out against the background.

Adding more detail to the car

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I added the racing numbers and also a little grey to add more form to the car.

Resizing the car

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I finally settled on this size.

Adding shading and hatching

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The shading and hatching helps to ground the car and also adds some more form to it.

The finished cartoon

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And that’s it! It was a lot of fun to draw.