Monday, October 23, 2006

BMW.

I had the great opportunity 2 months ago to work on a very interesting project for BMW featuring their series 1 car.
I was contacted by a London and New-York based Design Studio, Fibre (very nice and talented people by the way), to develop 40 illustrations featuring the car in different settings around the UK (not all the illustrations included the car) for a book called the "BMW 1 Series – good food ride".
It was quite a challenge to get the car right in each drawings, as I had to draw the car as if I was sketching it in the streets, with a very loose line, but still get the structure of the car and recognize the Series 1.
BMW kindly let me one of the top of the range series 1 for 1 week to get the feel of the car and sketch it in all different angles.
Even after seeing the sheer size of their car park full of brand new cars and bikes, I was hoping they would forget that I had one, but they didn't, and unfortunately I had to return it back.










And some of the illustrations not featuring the car.




I even had to draw some weird things (probably a BMW concept car).



These are the test sketches I've done for the agency. My first drawing of the BMW series 1, and there was something to do with the Ipod at the beginning, but didn't make it to the final brief.


40 comments:

samacleod said...

I'm soooooooooooooooooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooooooooooo jealous! Ah man, what a great opportunity, and dude they shoudla hooked you up with a car. Dang. Friggin awesome sketches man. beautiful.

Unknown said...

Thank you. This project has been a very good experience, I've learnt a lot, and got to puch my sketches further, in a more illustrative way.

J said...

Amazing job Stef! Wow. I like the palette quite a bit. Your sketches look great pushed with more polish.

Unknown said...

Thanks James! I didn't picked the colours, BMW chose them, just 2 tones, I was then allowed to play with the transparency. It's was tricky on the car, as I had to find the strongest reflection and simplify them, the ones which emphasize the lines of the car.

willborough said...

great stuff! the second one is my favorite but they are al very good. The car is easyly recognised and the reflections work really well!

B

Vince M said...

Wonderful work Stefane. Very smooth flow from one visual to another.

They picked the right man for the assignment.

MikeS said...

Brilliant work, Stef! A tighter look, but still has the feeling of the looseness you have in your sketches. Beautiful. I feel sad that they took back the car from you.

Cheers,
Mike (apparently the cleaner, shaved version of Elliot)...........haha

Rafael Arjona said...

Very fresh ! great work

Unknown said...

- I like the second too Willborough, thanks. It was one of the most interesting to draw.

- Thanks Vince!

- Thanks Mike, I did all the illustrations as if I was doing them in my sketchbook, directly with my pen, hence I redid some of them few times.

- Gracias Rafael.

max said...

Congratulations, very cool job, wonderful sketches.

Unknown said...

Thanks Max! was good to see you on Saturday.

Dominic Bugatto said...

These are great. Love the minimalist approach.

Matthew Cruickshank said...

SACRE BLEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!LOVELY

Unknown said...

- Thanks Dominic.

- Ah! Merci, tu peux avoir Laure pour la peine!

gur-B said...

you are the BMW of sketch artists Steph!


(nice montage by the way on the artfare!)

Unknown said...

Thanks Gur-b! the art fair movie was fun to do, doesn't make any sense really, but fun.

Anonymous said...

Quand est ce que vous m'emmenez faire un ptit tour en BM dans la campagne anglaise??? J'aime bcp ce que vous faites.

Mattias Adolfsson said...

Very cool, stef, very coool

Unknown said...

WOW!! THese are beautiful, what a great project. You really capture the car and the mood ... If I have the money, I would totally buy the car from looking at these pictures!

richtuzon said...

wow, this is great, Stef.

Urban Barbarian said...

Great work! Great color concepts. Wow!

Unknown said...

- Tack Mattias.

- I can get you 10% discount Alina if you want.

- Thanks Rich.

- Thanks UrbanBarbarian.

Mattias Adolfsson said...

Those bmw owners sure know how to live, love the coffea cup

Unknown said...

I had to go to the Wolseley, a very posh London restaurant and cafe, to sketch this Cappuccino, as they have their own way to do it, with this design made out of chocolate on top. This all project was an experience, I was like sketch journalist sometimes.

John T Quinn III said...

there never seems to be anyone driving the car. is it a robot car?

great work stef.

Unknown said...

They didn't give me a budget to add somebody in the car.

Bruno Fernández said...

Very good your sketches. Sincerely very good. I am going to try to paint mine. Greetings!!

Silvio Daniel Kiko said...

Impresionante, que manejo despreocupado de la linea, me encanta.

Anonymous said...

I don't like BMW's - but you managed to make them endearing.
But that chocolate - I definately want one of them.

Unknown said...

-Gracias Kiko

-Mish, go to the Wolseley on Picadilly, it's their special cappuccino, nice place.

SILVER KNIGHT said...

great work stef! really like the looseness style and you still capture the essence of a BMW car! only if ihave the money.... makes me wanna buy one! ;)

the doodlers said...

Very classy drawing of the car and it's 'travel', Stef. And did you get to go all those places with it too? What fun.

It is indeed challeging to boil down the car shapes as you have done so well.

Emmanuelle.Walker said...

je dis: M a g n i f i q u e.

Cereal Killer said...

wow Stef!!
your stuff is really great!
those sketches from BMW serie are ginormous!!

I love them all.....i like those clouds you did....so simple and so real....

really, great!

( º3º)

Unknown said...

- Thanks Roland.

- Thanks Doodlers, I didn't get the chance to travel to all those places, then sent me photographs and I drew the car and the backgrounds as if I was sketching outside. To draw the car in some loose lines and still be able to recognize it was a challenge.

- Merci Emmanuelle.

- Thank you very much cerial killer.

- Thanks Emmanuel. I did them in one stage, the deal was to draw the car and background as if I was sketching outside, on site, so to have this spontaneous feel I drew everything in one go, directly with my pen. If I'd done some roughs or constructions before, there would have been to much structure in it.
I did redraw some of the car to be sure that we could recognize the BMW series 1, you can actually see a difference between the test I did and the last ones where I started to get the feel of the car.

william wray said...

Great gig , great job. As the rest said: we envy you, but are not jealous as we would hire you too. ;-)

Unknown said...

Thanks William.

Paolat De la Cruz said...

your work is amazing ! i love it

paolat

Meredith Quinn said...

oh my gosh!!!!!!!
these are wonderful!!!

Loki said...

can u tell me how have u applied water colours or how u painted it
i loved it soo much
plzzzreply cause im an archi. student and sketch frequent but cant get it how to paint or add drama
plzz reply