Busting electric car myths

BMW

Contacted by BMW, I was asked to create a series of images to go alongside an online article debunking the myths surrounding electric cars. Though not specified in the brief, I decided to animate this series.

Thumbnails

Like any project, I started by sketching out some ideas. These are usually scrappy and illegible but because I had a relatively short time of 7 days to produce these animations, I cleaned them up a bit and presented them as my roughs to the client.

Colour roughs

Colour roughs are a crucial step in my process, especially when producing a series of illustrations. Finding a balance of colours that work for multiple subjects is tough but exploring it loosely at this stage saves time in the long run.

Illustration

Producing the final is straight forward once the sketch and colours have been approved. Here you can see the evolution of on one of the illustrations. I wanted to accurately portray the BMW i3 car from a variety of angles so I composed the shot with a 3D model in Cinema 4D.

The most complicated was perhaps the refuelling loop. Because it drives into frame from the left and leaves to the right, it means I had to illustrate most of the car though you only see parts for a single frame.

Animation

Once the static illustrations are complete, I take them into Photoshop or After Effects for animation. Most were straight forward such as the glow on the mechanic, which was a simple 3 frame effect.

Art Direction

Franziska Goppold

Client

BMW