Behind the Forza 2 Cars of the Carolina Core

Posted by: MarkDolven

Written by Ryan "ncasolo" Terpstra

When the Championship Gaming Series announced that they would be making the switch from Project Gotham Racing 3 to Forza Motorsport 2 for 2008, one of the first things that came to a lot of people's minds was that we would be seeing some amazing custom paint jobs. That is exactly what happened for all of the CGS teams as each racer in the league has his own custom car. The Carolina Core was honored to have ShadowBoxing and General Frankz team up and create their set of cars. We've decided to take a behind the scenes look at these cars and interview the painters. They did such an amazing job on the paint jobs that you would think it were easy, but if you read the enclosed interview, you will realize that they are just that good and that it wasn't easy.






** Note, Phantom and General's Numbers are wrong in this screenshot, but were fixed before TV **

Interview With ShadowBoxing and General Frankz

For those that don't know you, what type of background do you have with painting cars and/or graphic design?

ShadowBoxing: My background started with my Dad's paint shop. He used to paint race cars professionally. When I was 9 or 10 I did pinstripe flames on a '69 stingray. That's when I got started painting and in the early 90's I started painting on my own at a body shop working in the paint booth. My first car when I started painting again was a Shelby Replica.

General Frankz: I have no formal training in the arts or graphic design though my Mom is very artistic having trained in college. I never had much interest in art before and was probably more shocked than anyone when I received the art award in high school graduation. I guess you could say Forza was the first outlet to express my talent that I actually enjoyed.

Oh and for the non-Forza fan… how do you get those pictures on the car?

ShadowBoxing: It is a lot of tedious work with basic shapes and putting layers on top of each other. Put one shape down and add another shape on top of it over and over until you have the desired logo/look.

General Frankz: Basically we use simple shapes (squares, triangle, circles and half circles) to do everything you see on the cars by lining each shape only manipulating the height and width for each. To help give the illusion of the 3D seen on the hood of the CORE cars gradient shapes were used over the 2D logo. Though the 3D logo's were not that easy, the 2D CORE logo used around 140 layers whereas the 3D used 350 layers.

When did you first start painting things in Forza?

ShadowBoxing: I started right away with Forza 1. That was one of the first things I did and I always look at racing games to see if you can personalize cars.

General Frankz: I started painting cars almost from the day Forza 2 was released. My first designs were pretty simple though I still love my first Red Fog Racing/ Mobil 1 Pagani Zonda S. I did not really get serious until the Nissan Sentra Tournament painting cars for my car club, MRM with WildChild 906 who was a SF OPTX taxi driver.


Design: General Frankz
Are you able to apply things from the livery editor in Forza to things in the real world?

ShadowBoxing: I've been able to model concepts and designs for customers to give them an idea of what a finished product would look like. It has been a great tool for race car concept and design for me in real world painting. Being able to show something in a 3D rendering in a 3D environment with real reflections is far easier than doing something like that on paper.

General Frankz: No, I don't paint cars in real life like ShadowBoxing though I have a much greater appreciation for real paint jobs watching TV now!

Do you like to do fantasy designs as well or just race liveries?

ShadowBoxing: I only work on race liveries.

General Frankz: While I only do race liveries I certainly appreciate what painters like Little Vixen (Chicogo Chimera painter) are able do in the fantasy realm I've never actually tried to do a fantasy (artwork) like design and that's probably a good thing.

Do you do replica's or only original race liveries?

ShadowBoxing: All of my work is original work and nothing that is a real replica of a real world livery.

General Frankz: I do both replica and original race liveries though mostly original Monster Energy race designs for my car club.

Tell us a little bit about how long it takes you to create a logo.

ShadowBoxing: To design a basic logo it takes anywhere from 1-2 hours. It depends on if the logo is 2 dimensional or 3 dimensional. For a complex logo I usually just ask General Frankz to do it, and some of the CGS logo's it took Frankz a couple of days to do.

General Frankz: I'd say anywhere from eight to twelve hours sometimes less depending on the logo. I always started with the 2D logo first which takes the longest, doing the 3D logo may take an extra two to three hours.


Design: General Frankz
Start to finish if you're creating a brand new design how long do you think it usually takes you to create a car?

ShadowBoxing: I think it would take anywhere from 12-24 hours depending on how distracted I get. Since I am a perfectionist and I have a hard time staying focused it is hard to estimate how long it takes. It doesn't help that I get about 6 messages as soon as I turn on my XBox 360 asking me for a paint on this car or that.

General Frankz: Shadow was responsible for doing the design on the CGS cars however on my team cars it usually takes two to four hours for a complicated design.

When you look at a car and try to come up with a layout what types of things do you look for or is that just an artistic thing that you simply just need to have a feel for?

ShadowBoxing: It is a combination of both. I like to work with the lines that are part of the body of the car itself. I try to accentuate the lines of the car and how the sun reflects off of them. I try to make the car look faster even if it is in park.

General Frankz: I look at the design of the car first trying to accentuate any lines on the car. The actual design elements is dictated by the logo or sponsor, meshing the logo elements with the design. For most of the cars the theme of each team was given to us. For the CORE cars the design was to be straight cut and clean, kind of a quiet confidence look that wasn't overly showy. Obtaining the feel for it comes with experience.

How many different cars do you think you've painted in Forza?

ShadowBoxing: Well since I do multiple copies of a car for everyone in my car club you could say I've done 25 different Mugen Integra's. As far as unique layouts probably anywhere between 500 and 1000 between Forza and Forza 2. That's just unique designs. For the CGS alone we did 16 different CGS cars.


Design: ShadowBoxing
General Frankz: 50 -60. There's 31 cars in my gallery now and alot of the cars I have more than one design for, not to mention the one's that I never posted.

With the CGS cars you obviously had to meet some expectations. Did that make the project more challenging or less challenging because you knew what exactly was needed?

ShadowBoxing: It was challenging at first to understand exactly what the expectations were. We were given some guide lines, but until the cars were reviewed we weren't sure exactly what the definitions of some of those expectations were. Once we had a couple of designs completed it was a bit easier knowing what was expected.

General Frankz: I wasn't really concerned about expectations from the CGS, I was more concerned what the driver's and teams thought of the designs. I had the confidence going into the projects that I could do the logos and I knew ShadowBoxing was a good partner to have for the design work. Also Jason Katz from the CGS really helped us out with what was needeed and where to start. The most challenging aspect of painting the cars proved to be getting the ok from TV while still being happy with the designs.

If you can say how many teams did you design cars for?

ShadowBoxing: We completed cars for 7 teams which was the TVR and the Saleen S7 and one car for each racer. For some of the teams, we even had to design "road jersey" cars (4 per team) so that they wouldn't match up against the team they were racing against. It ultimately turned into 48 different cars that were "seen on TV."


Design: ShadowBoxing
General Frankz: Stockholm MAGNETIK, Rio SINISTRO, Mexico City FURIA, KL TAUFAN, Singapore SWORD, San francisco OPTX and Carolina CORE.

Which team is your favorite paint job?

ShadowBoxing: I think there were a lot of cars that really came out well. I really can't say I have a favorite.

General Frankz: Which team is your favorite paint job? That's tough I really like the OPTX light green car where the underlying matrix really shows up in the design, the Rio and SWORD cars are close but I'll cop out and just say the CORE car's.

Are there any other painters in the community that you really look forward to seeing their designs?

ShadowBoxing: I really use Forza to do stuff for my customers, and if I ever need anything I try to do it myself. There are many artists out there that I really respect the work that they do, but I don't follow the work of others too much. If I had to pick one artist I really like some of the work and respect the stuff done by Little Vixen.


Design: ShadowBoxing
General Frankz: Dark Pagey, any Gear Box design, Duffaman, Little Vixen, Razored 21/ Kat and of course the latest and greatest from ShadowBoxing, made more by the fact I can actually get them in my garage.

How was it working as a team to design these cars? Did the two artistic opinions create obstacles for you?

ShadowBoxing: Not at all. We really had roles in the process. I did the layout of the car and Frankz worked hard on the logos. I have a lot of respect for Frankz and really enjoyed working with him. I think it really made things much easier for us.

General Frankz: Not really we were on the same page for the most part and since we had defined roles. ShadowBoxing did the design, I did the logo's there was not any conflict. Combined with the tight deadlines we were given we did not have time to second guess each other and we had trust in each other's abilities.


Design: General Frankz
What types of things do people who know absolutely nothing about the livery editor need to know?

ShadowBoxing: "Everything." Get help from someone who knows the editor to get you started.

General Frankz: As far as doing a logo the secret is in proportions to the original design logo which is a subconscious factor that tells your brain whether something looks right or not. When doing a design it's about having a coherent theme with proper logo placement.