1974 - BMW E9 3.0 CSL Art Car - Full CGI

art car full cgi 3D Render vray CGI visualization car BMW

Again I partook in the monthly render challenge initiated by the Automotive CGI Facebook Group. This time (Challenge #44) the instructions from the previous winner Goon_ were pretty simple: "Make the best visual you can but the car must have a Livery on it. Either your own concept or a real design, that's up to you!"

As my entry I chose this first ever BMW "Art Car"; the 1974 BMW E9 3.0 CSL.

The history of BMW Art Cars is actually pretty interesting. For anyone who wants to read a bit more on how this first BMW Art Car came to be, SuperCarNostalgia has brief history lesson about this project, which can be found here.

So this art car was designed by the late renowned American artist Alexander Calder (July 22, 1898 – November 11, 1976) and participated in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1975, driven by Sam Posey. Although it didn't achieve a high position in the race, it garnered significant attention for its striking visual design.

The distinctive style of Alexander focused on abstract shapes and vibrant colors. His abstract work was heavily inspired by Piet Mondriaan, a Dutch painter which I also admire.

Here are some of the works of Alexander Calder, to help you get an idea of his art:

The 3d model I used as a base for this render was created by Simon Grover and can be downloaded for absolutely FREE here.

The quality of this 3d model is superb, so thank you very much Simon, for being so generous to share this quality model with all of us. I hope you like what I did to it ;)

Render Elements (RenderID - Normals - Ambient Occlusion):

I am still in the process of learning Substance, so to get to the final image, there was quite a bit of post processing work involved. I knew I wasn't having enough time to get the basics of Substance under control, and also have never before used particles like this, so post work sounded like a great idea for this piece. Here are some side-by-sides:

I'm thrilled to see that my entry became this months' winner receiving 61% of the 89 votes. I feel quite honoured haha :)

Thank you all for participating!

So now I get to choose the topic for the next challenge. What that topic will be shall soon be clear ;) I'm hoping for some comical entries :D

It would be awesome if even more people joined in these challenges, so subscribe to the Automotive CGI Facebook Group if you haven't already, and let's keep on challenging ourselves just for the fun of it! :)