Drawing a Single Cylinder Custom Motorcycle

I ride a motorcycle daily – commuting 100 miles to and from work. Motorcycles are my drug of choice so I wanted to try my hand at drawing a realistic motorcycle using pencil. Here is the process I took.

I started with a photo of a motorcycle I wanted to draw and added a 1″ x 1″ grid. I then made a 1″ x 1″ grid on the drawing paper. The next steps are trying to replicate the motorcycle on the drawing paper and then add the lighting and shading effects to give it the realistic look.

Here is the series of pictures.

Getting started

a little more detail

adding some shading and lighting

Continuing with shading

fairing shading

seat work

gas tank and front end work

front tire work

different view

continuing on

nearly finished

Here’s the finished drawing:

the finished drawing

And the finished drawing – framed:

finished drawing – framed