Nexen Tire re-enter Formula Drift as a partner and tire supplier for 2016 and commissioned me to produce a ‘car-toon’ style Spotter Guide having seen my Instagram art of Ford GT and Corvettes earlier this year.
Head over to the dedicated Nexen Tire page on SpotterGuides.com to download your guide, or pick one up printed up as removable stickers from Formula Drift events during 2016!
Thanks to Nexen for coming on board and Formula Drift with helping out on assets.
Hankook have been a partner with my Spotter Guide series for a number of years and proud to announce their return for 2016 to showcase their four cars in Formula Drift
Head over to the dedicated Hankook page on SpotterGuides.com to download your guide, or pick up one at the Formula Drift events during 2016. We have deliberately left space for you to get Autographs.
Thanks to Hankook Tires USA for their continued support.
I have been fortunate enough to have been commissioned by Nissan and NISMO again to produce more car illustrations.
this time their Super GT500 entries which were used in a preview post ahead of the 2016 Super GT Championship in Okayama, Japan this weekend.
I was recently asked to appear on one of Slipstream great series of podcasts with hosts Dusty Michael and Scott Elkins.
I talked about how I started from my days at Uni and McLaren and my transition from vehicle styling into livery design. Also a few tips and tricks of the trade. Finally I touch on how Formula Drift is really NASCAR for the 21st century 🙂
Its a long one, so grab a coffee. Links below. Thanks for the opportunity Scott and Dusty, it was great fun.
Leading British Touring Car runners, ‘Team BMR’ showed their all new Subaru Levorg GT at the British Touring Car Championship earlier this week. With a four car build underway for Team owner, Warren Scott, BTCC champions Jason Plato and Colin Turkington with new boy, James Cole, time has been very tight.
CJ Wilson Racing will add a second entry to the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge for selected races this year starting with this weekend’s Sebring.
Regular ABD Client, Tyler McQuarrie will pilot the car with IMSA debut ant and successful historic racer, Till Bechtolsheimer
Subaru Rally Team USA showed off their 2016 Rally liveries during testing in preparation for next weekend’s on the Rally of the 100 Acre wood. Developed from the 2015 design a bolder graphic has been employed which has been personalized for each driver.
The 2016 edition of the Spotter Guides Racing Wall Planner is now live on SpotterGuides.com
Featuring all the important international racing series, and many domestic ones, this has all the latest schedules as of this week.
Prints will be available next week.
Local branding specialists and regular client, Torque Branding have announced a new range of motorsport themed apparel and accessories under the ‘Full Torque Gear‘ brand. As part of this announcement, the company will have branding on Alex Welch’s Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car in the Pirelli World Challenge.
I was commissioned by Torque branding to produce a launch illustration which combined Alex’s existing livery (an ex-Parr Motorsport car) and car with Full Torque Gear’s coloration in full vector. This will also form the header for their to be launched website.
I will be supplying Full Torque Branding with a small number of designs during the year.
Long standing client Nissan and their motorsport brand NISMO with Paul Ryan Media commissioned me to produce a new set of car illustrations for their Infographics which formed part of their 2016 racing announcement.
With the rush of IMSA so called ‘off-season’ past us and wrapping up other projects, it is a good opportunity to catch up on vehicle templates now available, ready for liveries!
These templates have been produced using OEM or team supplied art, are to scale and fully vector.
Creating any template takes hours, so having these assets built and to hand makes the design process more efficient and cost effective. Working with scale templates are vital for a smooth design and vinyl/paint application process. As a trained Vehicle Stylist, I understand how a 2D graphic works on 3D form perfectly. Once signed off, these are ready within hours for print and vinyl production, streamlining the livery process.
I also have a full suite of templates for team and fan clothing and race haulers.
A summer of recent templates:
GT3:
Aston Martin Vantage GT3
Audi R8 LMS GT3
Audi R8 (2015,6) GT3 (WIP)
BMW M6 GT3
BMW Z4 GT3
Dodge Viper GT3 (WIP)
Ferrari 458 GT3
Ferrari 488 GT3
Lamborghini Huracan GT3
McLaren 650S GT3
McLaren MP4-12C GT3
Mercedes AMG GT3 2015
Mercedes SLS AMG GT3
Porsche 991 GT3 Cup
Porsche 991 GT3-R
I was commissioned by Henrique Cisneros of MOMO Motorsport back in 2014 to create a roadcar livery for a special Morgan three wheeler. Unlike previous MOMO products, branding was to be minimal as it would be for show and road use and the base color would be a chrome blue.
Morgan were most helpful with their design team supplying their logos and scale line drawings to ensure everything was accurate. As you can see the design from the outside was based upon a retro chrome strip graphic on the Blue chrome base, with some designs being integrated into the exhaust position.
Last week, Toyota announced ‘Scion’, its so called youth-centric brand, in North America would be absorbed into the Toyota line up beginning August 2016. It marks the end of a thirteen year journey for Scion, a brand I worked with during the Scion Tuner Challenge in 2014 and a number of Scion chassis over the year.
The original concept for Scion was to appeal to the youth market and in the early days it did just that, bringing previously JDM only vehicles to the US marketplace including the xB ‘Toaster’ which was a decade before the Kia Soul and Nissan Cube.
However over time, aside from the FR-S, the Scion product range was watered down to nothing more than bland Toyota with Scion badges.
As a special treat, and thank you for the tens of thousands who downloaded my IMSA Spotter Guide for the recent Rolex24, I am making available a free wallpaper featuring an illustration of the GTLM finish with Oliver Gavin leading Antonio Garcia by just 0.034 seconds, the closest class finish in Rolex 24 history.
2015 Pirelli World Challenge ‘TC’ Champion, Corey Fergus will move up to the GT Cup class of the Pirelli series with an updated livery on his new racecar, a Porsche 991 GT3 Cup Car. I designed the original AERO livery on his championship winning Porsche Cayman for the 2015 season from a joint commission by Corey and AERO paint films.
The livery has proved successful and recognizable in the crowded PWC grid in 2015, so the best approach was to update it to fit on the new 997.
Slightly different proportions and additional sponsor requirements resulted in an extensive rework on the side to ensure it was resolved on the longer wheelbase car. No cutting corners here.
The first of the 2016 IMSA Spotter Guides is now available to download on the new dedicated new 2016 IMSA Page on sister site, SpotterGuides.com
The Rolex 24 Guide is jam packed with over 90 car illustrations split across all four classes in the WeatherTech Championship along with the Continental Series.
This free download will be updated for each race A smaller file size version of this online guide will also be available at the official site, IMSA.com, on their Event Page
The start of the 2016 North American Season gets underway at Daytona International Speedway, this weekend with the Rolex 24 Hours and I have been involved in a variety of projects associated with the event.
Most prominent are new liveries for Turner Motorsport with their all new BMW M6 GT3 and CJ Wilson Racing and their new Porsche Cayman GT4 ClubSport.
The Turner design has been developed form the fan favorite Z4 livery, although the larger proportions of the M6 coupe proved challenging to balance. We ended up with a couple of final designs which the team could not decide on, so we went with both!
Each car runs a different diagonal stripe, along with the addition of driving light cover colors, help fans and the mechanics tell the two cars apart.
IMSA have commissioned me for many year to produce their official Spotter Guide (the Rolex edition gets released later today!). In recent years this has extended to additional illustrations for internal and external presentations and illustrations for their on track support, web and the IMSA app. An example of this is IMSA’s overview of the 2016 Classes post on IMSA.com
These blank car illustrations will also feature in the IMSA Raceday viewing guide booklet and around the track on hoardings aiding fan, old and new. A great example where a company can re-use and maximise their ‘investment’ in quality illustrations.
LInks:
IMSA Class overview
Jalopnik.com’s Stef Schrader has just published a cool feature on the livery design process of the new #33 CJ Wilson Racing Porsche Cayman GT4 ClubSport which will compete in the 2016 Continental Tires SportsCar Challenge.
I talk about why went for darker hues, the use of the CJ Wilson signature (aka ‘Star’) and how this has become a common feature on his racecars so no matter what the partner, it is always clear its a CJ Wilson Racing car and will make the entries look more like a collective regardless of sponsor or base color.
You can follow the article HERE.
Leading UK team, Team BMR will bring Subaru into the 2016 Dunlop MSA British Touring Car Championship and commissioned me to create a rendering to head the announcement. Completed last month, the render features the Subaru Levorg, a model only available in certain European and Asian markets with a BTCC spec body kit which was created in conjunction with Team BMR. For the release, the now ‘traditional’ Team BMR Black base was used. Was a cool render to create.
This marks the third Subaru supported team I have worked for. I also create the livery design for the Subaru Rally Team USA (Vermont SportCar) and Subaru Canada (Rocket Racing Rally)