Hookie Tardigrade: Nasa Concept Motorcycle with J. Konrad Schmidt

The Tardigrade is the world’s first moon concept motorcycle.

Inspired by future and past adventures to orbit, original CGI by Andrey Fabishevsky, built by Hookie, photographed by J. Konrad  Schmidt, retouching and post-production CGI elements by Recom Stuttgart.

The Inspiration

Andrey Fabishevsky dreamed up the original idea for a creative sketch challenge with a friend on Instagram, and developed it into a CGI concept. The idea took social media by storm, with features and speculation about the possibilities.
“I’d seen some very stylised and cool concept sketches of NASA motorcycles, and I wanted to make a bike in CGI that felt like a fully functional concept, not just a cool stylised idea.”
– Andrey Fabishevsky

Bringing the dream to life

Among those who saw the idea and loved it was Nico Mueller of Hookie  –  a Dresden based design company working on custom motorbikes, components and accessories. Inspired by Andrey’s visual, they contacted him with the idea of making the bike for real. The project was named “Tardigrade” after the tough little organisms that have been known to survive even in space. Andrey made new CGI drawings, exploring the construction in more detail in preparation for the build.

“Together with Hookie, we made something really cool and fresh. I haven’t seen the motorcycle in real life yet…I hope this will happen soon!”
– Andrey Fabishevsky

The Construction

At Hookie, the process of the build began – intricate welding, careful machining and many late nights brought the Tardigrade into reality.

“A thought experiment that also raises questions about our future: What would life beyond planetary boundaries look like? What demands does outer space make on a bike that can travel in the darkness of space and largely from the shackles of gravity over icy lunar dust? And how far away are we from such scenarios?”
–  Nico Müller, Hookie

 

Read more about the construction on their dedicated site here: Hookie Tardigrade.
For even more details on the build, there’s an in-depth article in BikeExif here.
With the long and detailed build and development complete, they now needed the imagery that would convey the idea and fire the imagination.

The Shoot

The search was on for a location that could stand in for the moon, and friends of Hookie knew the perfect space – a porcelain clay mine in the Czech Republic.

The bike travelled by trailer from Dresden and was lovingly assembled ready to be captured in action for the first time. The fine pale dust of the clay worked brilliantly for both the texture for the bike’s trails, and the lighting and structure of the lunar surface.

” It was surreal. Andrew and Hookie did such an amazing job. Standing on this location with this bike felt like – What else could anyone wish for. It looked right from the first second on.”
– J. Konrad Schmidt

Post Production

Back in Stuttgart, Recom worked with Konrad to achieve an otherworldly atmosphere, referencing real life lunar photography in  the contrast and grading.  Some details were tidied up, such as removing the bike’s  stand and remaking  the wheels in CGI in order to have a realistic feeling of speed.

” To break out of every day life, it is always cool to jump into space travel, to create an outer space lunar feel for such  a beautifully designed – out  of this world! – object as the TARDIGRADE. Recom is ready for the moon.”
– Thorsten Jasper Weese, Recom Stuttgart

 

Reception

The bike has been featured widely already  with features  in Designboom, Stirworld, Uncrate,and many more.

Future trajectory

With the world premiere as a part of the ADV:Overland exhibition at Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles in late 2021, Hookie wants to prove that even fantastic ideas can mature into a real, tangible object. All it takes is a vision and curiosity about the unknown.
Keep in contact with the continuing story of the Tardigrade on Hookie’s dedicated site here.

Selection of Images

A selection from the project. See the full series on recomfarmhouse.com here, on recom.de here, or on Behance here.

 

See the full series on recomfarmhouse.com here, on or on Behance here.

Credits
Client: Hookie.co
Photographer: J. Konrad Schmidt
Assistant & Location photos: Jeneba Komma
Original CGI concept: Andrey Fabishevsky
Model: Karolína Machová
Video: David Ohl

Post-Production Credits:
CGI Direction: Thorsten Jasper Weese / Recom Stuttgart
Post Production: Thomas Saalfrank / Recom Stuttgart
CGI Artist: Ronja Wafzig, Thomas Neumeier / Recom Stuttgart

 

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On Location: Nissan Qashqai with Nick Meek

We travelled to Capetown with Nick Meek to shoot this Nissan campaign for TBWA Paris.
“While some may think that adding technology detracts from the raw experience of driving, Nissan is proving that technology can turn your car into an exciting partner”

With the idea of humanising technology, it was appropriate that we all had the most fun with the spacesuit! Join us nn set with New Moon Productions in Capetown…

 

Simon from New Moon productions suits up!

 

In post-production, we put together the astronaut image and ‘painted’ it in Photoshop onto the side of the wall – see how we did it :

See all the final images on our site here.

Client: Nissan
Agency: TBWA Paris
Photographer: Nick Meek
Photographer’s Agent: Prune Pariente, Florence Moll
Creative Director: Darren Rosenberg
Art Buyer: Claire Sougy-Walwer
Art Director: Joy Robin
Production: New Moon Production
Post Artist: Pepe Alram, Aljaz, Bezjak / Recom Farmhouse

On Location: BMW with Stefan Milev

Project: BMW Group / Stefan Milev Client: BMW Group Photographer: Stefan Milev Creative Director: Antje List Post Artist: Julia Ackermann,Lorenz Edelmann,Thomas Saalfrank

That’s how it goes when you have so many cars….over time, some go missing, and eventually one is lost completely.

This is what happened to BMW’s Garmisch concept car from 1970.  The Garmisch was designed at the legendary Italian house Bertone, and exhibited at the Geneva Motor Show –  its modern lines clearly influenced the design of the first 5 series in 1972.

The original concept car has disappeared, untraceable to this day. Maybe it will turn up as a barn find in fifty years.

But BMW didn’t want to wait that long, and rebuilt the car from the original design documents. The documents were all in black and white, so for colour, they had to consult the car’s original designer: Marcello Gandini, who created iconic sports cars such as the Lamborghini Miura and Countach, and the Lancia Stratos. The car was rebuilt by hand in Turin, in much the same way as the original 50 years ago, and the reborn Garmisch was exhibited at the Concorso d’Eleganza 2019 at Lake Como.

Read the fascinating story of its reconstruction here in Classic Driver.

On Location (Photos: Stefan Milev)

Stefan Milev photographed the Garmisch using this 8 x 10 wooden Deardorff camera from 1948 – the team travelled to locations around Italy’s Piedmont region using mostly Polaroid film on the vintage camera.

 

 

On Location (Photos: Speedball Productions)

Vlens Mueller-Feller of Speedball Productions: “During early preparations, images of the (possible) final result will start to appear before one’s eyes, when scouting I already can see the photographer or director saying “this is it, this is the perfect spot” (@put.model.here)… So this spot in the Italian Alps was one of those.” See their Instagram feed for more…

 

 

Final images

The resulting film images were scanned and graded by our artists in the Stuttgart studio to enhance the colour mood of the series.

Project: BMW Group / Stefan Milev Client: BMW Group Photographer: Stefan Milev Creative Director: Antje List Post Artist: Julia Ackermann,Lorenz Edelmann,Thomas Saalfrank

See the full series on Behance here and on our site here.

Client: BMW Group
 Photographer: Stefan Milev
Post Artists: Julia Ackermann, Lorenz Edelmann, Thomas Saalfrank / Recom Stuttgart
Creative Director: Antje List
Production: Speedball Productions and Pirate Productions
Model: Scott Temple
Photographer’s Agent: Wildfox Running

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On Location: Mercedes with Nick Meek

 

Bold primary colours meet strong abstract shapes in this campaign for Mercedes from Antoni. We travelled with photographer Nick Meek to Calvert Studios, an extraordinary and unique open air car studio in Spain. Enjoy these pictures from behind the scenes:

 

 

The dream team – Jorge, Nick, Christoph and Paul.

The final images are used in the deluxe print campaign, and billboards in place in Germany. See them in situ here.

 

See all the finished images on Behance here and try to work out which ones are CGI…

Client: Mercedes-Benz Deutschland
Photographer: Nick Meek
Assistants: Jorge Dieguez, Paul Blundell

Executive Production: Siobhan Squire
Location: Calvert Studios

Agency: Antoni
Executive Creative Director: Veit Moeller
Creative Director: Christian Kies, Christopher Hoene
Art Director: Mathias Wilke, Tim Grötzinger
Copywriter: Matti Lietsch, Luca Haeussler
Head of Product Communication Cars Germany: Christine Wolburg
Product Communication Cars Germany: Nancy Weitling
Art Buyer: Valerie Opitz

CGI Artist: Kristian Turner / Recom Farmhouse
Post Artists: Pepe Alram, Kate Brown, Maria Luisa Calosso, Nuria Segura, Aljaz Bezjak / Recom Farmhouse

On Location: Nissan Juke

We travelled to Spain with Nick Meek to shoot the new Nissan Juke in a series of elegant architectural settings. For post-production, this involved a wide spectrum of skills – from shooting duplicate cars in order to avoid complex reflections, bringing sunshine to a rainy day, and finally a dramatic day-to-night conversion.

For this shot, the reflections of the structure were too much to be removed in post, so Nick photographed duplicate cars inside and outside the building, Christoph captured additional backplate elements. We had to deal with very mixed weather conditions! The team went out on a boat to shoot the skyline – the cityscape that you see in the shot was puzzled together from many separate shots to get the perfect backplate, evocative of an attractive city without detracting the viewer from the car as the hero of the shot. Join us on location:

Nights are drawing in! After the shoot was completed, Nissan wanted a night-time version of one of the shots. This was a very interesting challenge – moving a very high key image to be ultra low key

The car is a new, special edition model, so the alterations were complex – far beyond just changing the colour. We re-rendered the paint and the interior of the car – only tyres and lights remain from the original model. Using the HDR spheres that we’d produced at the time, we re-rendered the building and environment. The floor was taken from the original (pre-retouching) imagery, so retained its texture and was accurate at night. We replaced the city at skyline at the back with sourced material to make a new nightscape.

The new shot retains the elegant simplicity of composition that is a key part of the original, whilst adding the distinct ambience of a moonlit night.

Nissan

See the process here:

And the whole campaign on Behance here.

Client: Nissan Europe

Agency: TBWA/Paris

Art Director: Elisabeth Ribeiro

Assistant Art Director: Maude Muller

Art Buyer: Marie Moulin

Photographer: Nick Meek

Production: New Moon Productions

CGI Artist: Kristian Turner (daytime shot), Carlos Pecino (night time shot)

Post Artists: Pepê Alram, Ulf Cantignon, Christoph Bolten

On Location: Bentley with Graham Thorp

Bentley Continental GT

We spent a week shooting in locations around Italy for Bentley, with photographer Graham Thorp and agency Keko London, updating classic Italian landscape photography to fit with the modern luxury of the new Bentley Continental GTI.

As we started work to create the perfect image above, it was clear that there would be some challenges along the road…photographer Graham Thorp waits for the briefest moment of sunshine. “Let’s shoot in the mountains, they said. The light and views are amazing, they said…”

In the rain

Creative Director Iain Ross searches for a break in the clouds:

Recom Farmhouse on location with Bentley

…but after extensive scouting (and a wait for the weather!) we’re up early and waiting for the light:

Awkward positions make for the perfect angle on those twisting mountain roads… 

As workspaces go, you can’t complain:

That perfect low light for shooting needs some work for the post-production environment…

 

Talk to the monitor!

 

Beautiful sunset light on a perfectly curving stretch of road…

Recom Farmhouse on location with Bentley
Recom Farmhouse on location with Bentley

Setting up in the early morning – classic Tuscany landscapes:

Recom Farmhouse on location with Bentley

Burning the midnight oil by the pool:

Recom Farmhouse on location with Bentley

 

Some of the final results in print, in Harper’s Bazaar:

See the campaign on our site here

Credits:

Client: Bentley
Agency: Keko London
Photographer: Graham Thorp
Creative Director: Iain Ross
Production: Martin Bennett, “a href=”http://www.mustard-berlin.com/” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Mustard Berlin
Producer: Maja McIntosh
Post-Production: Recom Farmhouse

On Location – Ford Ranger CGI with John Roe

Client: Ford Agency: GTB Photographer: John Roe Creative Director: Todd Ruthven Art Director: David Nonthaweth Art Production: Kim Harris, Gerri Kozikowski Production: Roe Photo CGI Artist: Recom Farmhouse Team Post Artists: Recom Farmhouse Team

Sling your surfboard into the pickup and join us on location for our ten day shoot travelling across Oregon’s beaches, forests, deserts and mountains. We worked with John Roe and GTB on the launch campaign of the Ford Ranger, marking its return to the US market after seven years.

We had a Ford Ranger brought in from Australia with the same dimensions and wheel base as the new Ford Ranger, which we would later create in CGI for the final images. This helped greatly for lining up shots, and for the talent to interact with – especially for loading and unloading surfboards, bikes and so on. We had every kind of weather imaginable – sun, snow, rain and wind but thanks to the Lizard’s super fast capture, we were able to work quickly, even in the shortest windows of sunshine.

 

See how this shot was created in our “Making of” video here:

Next was a beach location. The photographer would first shoot the image with the stand-in truck.  Then we would move the truck out of view and shoot clean backplates.  In this way we could easily add the new CGI truck, and composite the talent back into the final image.

 

On Set for Ford Ranger

 

Final Image

Client: Ford Agency: GTB Photographer: John Roe Creative Director: Todd Ruthven Art Director: David Nonthaweth Art Production: Kim Harris, Gerri Kozikowski Production: Roe Photo CGI Artist: Recom Farmhouse Team Post Artists: Recom Farmhouse Team

 

 

On set in a contrasting location  – a very cold morning as we shoot the truck in the snow. With the truck driven away, Richard sets up the Lizard to capture a spectacular mountain backdrop.

Cold morning

Final Image:

Client: Ford Agency: GTB Photographer: John Roe Creative Director: Todd Ruthven Art Director: David Nonthaweth Art Production: Kim Harris, Gerri Kozikowski Production: Roe Photo CGI Artist: Recom Farmhouse Team Post Artists: Recom Farmhouse Team

While we were on the shoot, we talked about how it would be fun to put Bigfoot into one of the images, and we put him into a shot as a surprise for the client in the presentation. They loved it! So a couple of “Easter Eggs” made it into the final images and can be seen on the Ford site ..see if you can spot Bigfoot and Nessie! North American Product Communications Manager at Ford, Mike Levine, referenced them for people to find on his Twitter account here:

 

 

This was a fun shoot with a great bunch of people. We couldn’t resist setting up the Lizard for a 360 degree group shot. Introducing the Dream Team!

From left to right:
Jason Pachura – Location Manager
Brian Hug – Motorhome
Josh Nagy – Digital Technician
Richard Levene – CGI Supervisor
Phil Treece – DST (Car specialist)
John Kwiecien – Producer
John Roe – Photographer
Dianna Berggren – Production Coordinator
Nathan Garcia – Camera Assistant
Pete Thomas – Camera Assistant
Todd Ruthven – Creative Director
David Nonthaweth – Digital Art Director

See the whole series of fifteen images on our site here.

Credits:

Client: Ford
Agency: GTB
Creative Director: Todd Ruthven
Digital Art Director: David Nonthaweth
Art Producer: Gerry Kozikowski, Kim Harris
Photographer: John Roe
CGI & Retouching: Recom Farmhouse NY & London Team
Production: Roe Photo

BMW i3S with Andreas Hempel – On Location

The i3S is the sportier brother of BMW’s electric compact car. For the launch, BMW wanted a strong real-life feeling – as if passers by had taken some snapshots. Shot over eight days in the streets of San Francisco, Andreas Hempel used natural light in urban situations, using a current model as a stand-in.

With the plan being to use as much natural light as possible, the preparation day started out rather worryingly…

BMW i3S - Recom Farmhouse On Set with Andreas Hempel

However the next morning was much improved and the team assembles for the first shot:

BMW i3S - Recom Farmhouse On Set with Andreas Hempel

Timelapse of setting up a shot:

 

Lunch break, San Francisco style

BMW i3S - Recom Farmhouse On Set with Andreas Hempel

As each first day’s shooting is complete, with on-set support from our Stuttgart team, we prepare to work our magic!

 

 

Work begins…

BMW i3S - Recom Farmhouse On Set with Andreas Hempel

Reference photos for wheel reflections.

BMW i3S - Recom Farmhouse On Set with Andreas Hempel

More high-speed work

 

Getting on the the low down for the perfect angle…

BMW_i3s - Recom with Andreas_Hempel - Behind the Scenes I

 

BMW_i3s - Recom with Andreas_Hempel - Behind the Scenes 3

A complex setup to capture a spontaneous moment…

BMW_i3s - Recom with Andreas_Hempel - Behind the Scenes 5

Setting up the shot, preparing for the moment when the light is at the perfect angle

BMW i3S - Recom Farmhouse On Set with Andreas Hempel

And – there it is! We swapped in almost the entire front plus a few other distinctive parts of the new model in CGI, and intensified the dark, shadowy look. See the full series on our site here

Client: BMW
Agency: Serviceplan
Photographer: Andreas Hempel
Creative Directors: Jan Grothklags, Falk Pegelow, Mark Räke
Art Director: Christine Behrendt
CGI Artist: Andreas A. Maurer / Recom Farmhouse
Post Artists: Jonas Disch, Laura Kißner / Recom Farmhouse

Infiniti with Nick Meek – Behind the Scenes

Having recently established a new look for Infiniti, Nick Meek was asked once again by CP+B to apply his distinctive high key style to five more models of their fleet.

Infiniti QX70

We were delighted to work once again on the post-production throughout the shoot, both on location and in the studio.

This was a shoot of epic proportions!

  • 3 months
  • 3 productions
  • 27 major exterior shots
  • 50 detail shots
  • 6 different models
  • Crew of 18

The Southern California locations included urban LA environments, desert highways, bridges, as well as an airport and a racetrack. With one of our retouchers constantly on set, we were able to jump start the post production. First pass amends could be in place before sending files to the agency, with feedback from Nick and the clients on set already incorporated.

The production convoy sets off to the desert:

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The car travels in the finest style of course.

Gear and preparation:

Nick’s camera mounted to the end of the rig and ready to shoot.

So many measures to work against the fierce desert sun! This flexible arm keeps the camera in shade and and can also be used to block flare.

It’s a long walk back once the rig is set up – this is at its maximum extension.

The captures go directly to Kate’s workstation. We use walkie-talkies to keep in touch, so post-production can begin smoothly and directly from the image capture.

This exterior station is a convenient direct point for the client signing off elements such as the angle of the car. Left to right: CD Doug Kohnen of CP+B, Kara Hughes of Infiniti, Nick Meek.

Nick inspects some images in the workstation.

At other locations, a smaller portable sun shelter is useful.

Nick goes handheld and low angle for detail shots.

Setting up the ‘Lizard‘ to capture HDR spheres for reference, so we have a full record of the background in case of any later alterations – this means that if we need to change any details we have an accurate record for reflections and lighting on the car.

Capturing some city skyscrapers with the Lizard for use as backup for the city location, in case they were needed.

Life on the set

Tunnel vision can set in on these long shoots…

But the epic skies and open desert are stunning.

Hats are a necessity when working long hours in the blasting desert sunshine.

Clouds drift by as we wait for the perfect light
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Even in the desert, the production team have to be vigilant – when the weather comes in, it happens fast! Approaching storms mean everything has to go under cover at very short notice.

Here it comes!

However the show must go on – no storm can stop Nick from continuing to work! Even in these conditions, he was able to capture great results. These were the shooting conditions:

…and this is the final result!

The precipitation did have some unexpected and spectacular side effects…

In between all the hard work during these long days on the road there were always moments of fun, where we got to play with an array of toys the crew had brought along (e-skateboards, mini motorcycle, remote controlled cars etc), and as we were being baked by the hot desert sun, we got to listen to some fine tunes by the motorhome band, while being spoiled by some amazing catered foods – Many thanks to Will Taylor of Ink and Oranges for their work on production!

Recom kept standards high with Kate coming first in her Go-Kart team.

The rig came in handy as a gigantic “selfie stick” to capture the crew, though no cable release was long enough to operate the camera!

Left to right:

Not shown:

All in all a very productive and delightful job. It was great to work once again with Nick Meek, the production was a big success and the same team is currently in the US working on the next Infiniti project.

Infiniti QX70

See the full series on our site here.