Motorcycle Rendering Tutorial for Photoshop, creating a 'photoreal' 2D motorcycle

As you can see I have skipped the part where I create the paths, we have covered that already. I created these reflections on areas that will be highly reflective, the black plastic bits won't need them.
Create a new layer called Reflections and convert your reflection paths to a selection. Fill the selection with white.

First thing to do is to turn down the opacity of the reflections layer. Having some reference photos nearby helps to chose a realistic value for this. I chose an opacity of 34%, be careful not to make the reflections overpower your whole image and taking too much attention away from the subtle shading we have created underneath.

To finish the reflections I slightly erased the corners and edges of each reflection. This simulates lightboxes used in photography that have their main light strenght in the center of the box.
Very simple, use a big airbrush with just a little bit of opacity so you don't erase the whole edge in one go.

Now you probably noticed this much earlier than I did, but I was about to wrap this baby up when I discovered I actually completely forgot to make the handlebars and brake handles. Ah yes, nothing better than suddenly discovering you actually have quite a bit of work to do when you think you're done.

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What I did here (sorry for the missing process images..) is basically repeat the whole process of making a quick sketch, new paths, new layers, flat shade fills, highlights and reflections. Since these steps are all familiar by now I hope it shouldn't be too much of a problem if I leave these out.

Here's the end result.. notice the missing mirrors. After I made the handlebars it became obvious the mirrors were in an impossible position. Rather than repositioning them I left them out. The bike is a rendering study and not an exercise in design, besides, the lights are missing as well, so sue me

I hope you enjoyed the tutorial and maybe picked something up in the process... I know I did. One last change I made after finishing this piece and entering it in my folio is adjusting the ground shadow a bit more as well as the floor area. I made it a little bit flatter to match the side view 'camera position' a bit more.

If you feel you need more help creating images like this, please consider getting Scott's dvd.. there's nothing like watching someone perform the whole process right in front of you:

Of course, if you have any questions, let me know and I will try to answer them as well as possible.