Joe did you work on top of a photo?
Yeah, I'm no Chip Foose. :Big Laugh I need something to work off of. Although I do stray away from the photo time to time and exaggerate things, especially colors. Another example is the light highlight or the reflection of the skyline, normally has a silhouette of trees and building and things like that, which I may sometimes chose to illustrate, but in this case I went with just a straight line. It makes the car look a bit more illustrated and less lifelike.
To answer the tablet question... I haven't quite gotten the hang of tablets for this type of stuff. Grandpa Dan Sawatzky tells me I need to have someone here hide my mouse from me and never give it back if I ever want to get used to it. Someday when I can scrap together some extra money, I want to get a Wacom Cintiq. Something about seeing what I am drawing under my pen tip appeals to me. It would probably feel a little more natural than what I'm doing now.