New Video from Consumer Reports
A video made by a crew from Progressive Insurance in Las Vegas at the SEMA show last November.
Auto X Prize Shakedown: Who Is Ready to Race? – Popular Mechanics Article
Supercars Are On Track – MSNBC Article
This is the latest art edition of the Illuminati Concept Car.
In this version the correct headlights were added along with a pair of chrome front bumpers. At the back there were adjustments made to flatten the rear, also added is the car’s number “77″.
When you compare the previous version below with the new version above you can see the differences.
The latest news is that they are now officially one of 13 teams left in the Mainstream Class. They are also one of only 3 all electric cars is that class.
See their team page on the Progressive Automotive X Prize site.
They have more new videos uploaded on their YouTube page. Find out more about the concept artwork.
This is the back view and now new front view of the Speedstar Vicky concept car. The Speedstar Vicky is one of three concepts I did for a Rod & Custom Magazine article some time ago.
Since then I have received a lot of emails from people asking what the front end looks like?
I have always had in mind what I wanted to do for the front but never seemed to find the time. But as the emails came in I started thinking more about it and decided to work it in between some other projects.
The guys over at Illuminati Motor Works have uploaded a new video showing how the concept car “Seven” is taking shape. The way they describe the building process it reminds me of the way Ed “Big Daddy” Roth use to build his Show Cars.
Read about the concept artwork I created for Illuminati Motor Works.
This is artwork of the concept car “Seven” from Illuminati Motor Works.
Illuminati is one of 42 teams left competing for $5 million in the Progressive Automobile X Prize.
The rules for the Progressive Automobile X Prize is that the cars must seat four, have four wheels and have a minimum range of 200 miles. They also have to get the equivalent of 100 miles to the gallon plus be feasible as a consumer product.
The Illuminati Motor Works team members are:
Kevin Smith: Team Leader and Principle Engineer,
Josh Spradlin: Graphic Designer/ Fabricator,
Thomas Pasko: Master Automotive Technician,
George Kennedy: Mechanical Engineer
Nathan Knappenburger: Computer Science and Electronics Engineer.
I have been working with Josh, their graphic designer/fabricator, on creating artwork for the project. Josh does a great job at designing. What I have been doing is taking Josh’s sketches and redrawing them using illustrator.
What makes this project a challenge is that the vehicle is so different from anything we currently see on the road. It not like they can say, “Take an existing model and add this or change that”. So when working on a project like this it is great to have someone like Josh who can direct me on what the final car will look like with his sketches.
Below are links to recent articles about them in The State Journal-Register and the Illinois Times.
The State Journal-Register | Springfield, IL
Local guys driven to win $5M car competition
Illinois Times
X PRIZE team passes the test – Illuminati Motor Works is one of 43 left in international competition
Find out more about Illuminati Motor Works at illuminatimotorworks.org
You can also friend/follow them on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.
I came across this great collection of retro logos on Flickr that I wanted to pass along. If you are an artist in need of some logo ideas, then looking at images like these are a great way to spark new ideas.
The logos are posted by “Depression Press”. See more great design elements from “Depression Press” on their photostream.
This is a new color version of the custom TATA Nano I did earlier.
I posted the custom Nano artwork images in my Flickr account and someone commented that they were planning on buying one and was curious to see how the custom black/orange version would look in sunshine yellow instead of the orange. Sunshine yellow is one of the Nano’s factory colors.
In the majority of my artwork I use many different fades, so changing colors is not so easy. But on the Nano artwork I only used two fades to make up the orange, which made changing the colors easier. That being the case, I did one up for them to see.
What do you like best, the sunshine yellow version or the orange version?
Check out these hot pair of TATAs! This is concept artwork I did of the new TATA Nano. The TATA Nano has been introduced as the world’s cheapest car and will be launched in India sometime around 2008.
When I first heard about the Nano, I thought to myself what would one of these small, cheap, gas-savers look like all tricked out. So I drew two of them with custom paint, custom wheels, and a lowered suspension. I also modified the front of the orange and black Nano between the fog lights.
I thought that since I was doing concept art of a new model it might be a good idea not to make too many body modifications. Doing too many modifications on a new model could make it unrecognizable since it hasn’t been seen a lot by the public.
So you might ask, why create concept art of what is being called the world’s cheapest car? Well, I remember reading that the spirit of hot rodding is to take what has been manufactured from the car companies and in one way or the other, improve it. It seems that you can take almost any model ever made and find one that has been modified, so why not the Nano?
Below is more information about the Nano from TATA’s website.
“The Nano is rear-wheel drive and it has an all-aluminum, two-cylinder engine. Its tailpipe emission performance exceeds regulatory requirements and in terms of overall pollutants, it has a lower pollution level than two-wheelers being manufactured in India today. The name ‘Nano’ was chosen as it denotes high technology and small size.”
http://www.tatanano.com
http://www.tatamotors.com
What are some of the other cars out there you would like to see customized?
