Car, Motorcycle, Boat and Aircraft Portraits

You already have the photos. The build is finished, the name is on the transom, or the last flight is on the calendar. We turn those photos into a hand-painted canvas. We paint cars, trucks, motorcycles, sailboats, yachts and aircraft from the pictures you send. Every canvas is painted to order in our studio in Dafen Art Village, Shenzhen. Nothing is printed. There is no minimum order, so one painting is a normal order here. We photograph the finished canvas and send you the photos, and nothing ships until you say it looks right.

The moment that starts one of these

Nobody wakes up wanting a painting of a machine. Something happens first. The restoration is finally done. The boat or the plane is being sold, and people often order the week it leaves, so the wall keeps what the driveway loses. A pilot reaches the end of a career. There is a christening, a class trophy, a first solo, or a Father’s Day with a date on it.

Most of these have a deadline you cannot move, so work backward. Painting takes 7 to 10 business days for one to five pieces. Express shipping by FedEx or DHL takes 5 to 10 business days. Allow about four weeks from your first message to the box arriving. If your date is closer, say so in the first message and we will tell you honestly whether it is possible.

What to send us

One good photo is enough to start. More photos help, because a single shot always hides something.

• The hero angle. The shot you want the painting to look like. A three quarter view from a front corner flatters almost every car, bike and boat.
• A straight side view. This is how a painter gets the proportions right, even when the painting is at another angle.
• Close ups of the details. Badges, grille, wheels, hull name, sail number, the fuselage registration.
• The paint in daylight. Metallic and pearl finishes look nothing alike under a garage light and under the sun.

Soft light beats bright noon sun, which makes hard black shadows and turns shiny paint into a mirror of the parking lot. If the vehicle is already sold and you cannot reshoot, we work with what exists.

The details owners actually check

An owner looks at a painting of their own vehicle in a set order. Shape, then color, then the small identifying marks. That last group has to be right.

Say up front how tight you want it. Some owners want every panel gap. Others want thick paint with visible knife marks, the handling you can see across our impressionist collection.

Keep the background or replace it

This is where a painting beats a photo. Most vehicle shots were taken wherever the vehicle happened to be: a driveway, a show field, a busy ramp.

• Keep it. If the setting is part of the story, we keep it. Your garage, the family barn, the home marina.
• Clean it up. Same place, minus the trash cans, cones, power lines and the stranger in the reflection.
• Replace it. A mountain road, a coast road at dusk, a wet city street, open water, a runway at sunrise.
• Change the weather. Golden light, rain on the road, a storm sky behind the sails. Weather does more for a vehicle portrait than anything else.

How big to paint it

Cars, boats and aircraft are long and low, so they almost always want a horizontal canvas. A motorcycle shot head on, or a plane climbing, can work square or vertical.

Size is really a proportion question. Measure the wall or the piece of furniture the painting will hang over, then pick a canvas that fills most of that width without crowding the edges. Here is where buyers usually land.

• Over a sofa or a bar in a den: most buyers land around 40 to 48 inches wide, which covers a good part of the width of the furniture below.
• Over a desk or console in a home office: a step narrower, since the console itself is narrower.
• A garage, shop or hangar wall: go bigger than feels sensible. Those walls are tall and open, and a modest canvas simply disappears on them.
• A narrow hall or stairway: smaller than most people guess, or turn the composition vertical so the wall carries it.

Standard sizes run from 24 by 20 inches up to 80 by 60 inches, and any other size is painted to your measurements at the same rate. A long vehicle painted small loses the badges and lettering first. Fine lettering needs a larger canvas, so tell us if the hull name or tail number must be readable and we will recommend a size.

How the commission runs

1. Send photos. Tell us the vehicle, the angle you want, the background, and your deadline.
2. WhatsApp replies are usually immediate; email replies usually arrive within 12 hours. A real person, Monday to Sunday. We quote the piece and the freight separately.
3. You approve and pay a deposit. Usually 50 percent, with the balance before the painting is released.
4. We paint and send progress photos. A wrong wheel or a wrong shade of red gets fixed on the canvas, not after shipping.
5. You approve the finished canvas. Nothing leaves the studio until you approve the photos.
6. We pack it your way. Rolled in a tube, stretched on wood bars, or framed. Freight is quoted at cost and we do not add to it.

Rolled, stretched or framed

Rolled in a tube ships cheapest, and a local framer stretches the canvas when it lands. Stretched on solid wood bars arrives ready to hang, which is easier when someone has to open it on the day. Framed comes in black, white, wood, silver or gold, and all five cost the same, so pick the color that suits the room. Heavy texture ships stretched or framed, because rolling thick paint is not recommended.

Ordering from a studio you have never visited

Who is actually painting it? We are a hand-painting studio in Dafen Art Village, Shenzhen. Every canvas is painted by hand, to order, and you see progress photos while yours is on the easel.

What if it does not look like my vehicle? You tell us while it is still on the easel. If a finished piece has a defect that is our fault, we repaint it at our cost.

How do I check before I commit? For a first order or a large project we paint a sample, and the sample cost is credited back on any order of 10 pieces or more. More about how we work is on our FAQ page.

Dealers, clubs, brokers and flying groups

Plenty of this work is not a single gift. It is a dealership giving a painting with each collector car it sells, a broker marking a closing, or a club making show awards for a season.

• Trade pricing starts at one piece. The rate improves at 6 pieces and again at 21, and mixed designs count together, so six different cars count the same as six of one.
• Production runs 10 to 15 business days for 6 to 20 pieces and 15 to 20 for 21 to 50.
• Rolled canvas is the cheapest way to ship more than about 20 pieces, and a local framer stretches them on arrival.

Full terms are on our trade page, and the other things we paint from your own photos are on our custom art page.

Good fit, not a fit

A good fit

• You have decent photos of a specific vehicle and you know which angle you love.
• You want visible brushwork and thick paint, not an airbrushed copy of a photograph.
• You want a large canvas, and you have four weeks or more before the date.
• You are ordering more than one, for a club, a dealership or a reunion.

Not a fit

• You want photorealism where every reflection matches. A specialist automotive photorealist is the better call.
• You want a small desk piece. Our standard sizes start at 24 by 20 inches, and a vehicle painted much smaller loses the badges and lettering.
• You want technical illustration, a cutaway or a side profile recognition print.
• You need it in hand in ten days from a standing start.

What we will not paint

We paint your vehicle, including the badges and markings on it, because they are part of the object you own. A manufacturer’s logo on its own is not artwork we paint, and we never sell a painting under a car maker’s or an airline’s name. We also cannot copy another artist’s aviation print or marine painting. Unit patches and squadron insignia are sometimes owned by an association or a designer, so check with the rights holder first. For historical subjects we check copyright before we quote, and we paint only work that is in the public domain, which means the artist died more than 70 years ago and the work was published before 1931. If the painting marks a retirement or another milestone, see graduation and milestone portraits.