BMW Zagato Coupé

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BMW's new one-off Zagato Coupé is a design masterpiece.

BMW and Zagato decided to collaborate on a design project for the glamorous Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este on the shores of Lake Como in Italy. This is of course a Z4 with a a fancy bodykit. Or so you first think.

However on closer and prolonged inspection, you start to realize that this not simply a bodykit job. The design lines run deeper than what is first perceived. If you still don't think this car looks good from any angle, have a look at real pictures, not the press images posted here. The revelation will hit you with the force of a brick wall.  The exquisitely beautiful curves festooned on the hood and flanks are hand beaten and manually welded. In fact, apart from the BMW Z4 running gear, every single part of this car was handmade.

Even the paint needs three coats consisting of a black primer, matte silver and then finally a transparent red with a tinge of orange which gives the colour a very unique and beautiful finish.

The last time BMW and the Italians came together, was for the BMW M1 supercar which was collaboration of German engineering and Italian design. The BMW Zagato Coupe however is the marriage of BMW and Zagato design elements. The running gear is of course German but the traditional BMW design elements have been retained. This BMW in my opinion easily rivals the Aston Martin Zagato coupe which consisted of nothing but a fancy bootlid in terms of design.

If BMW gives this Zagato a M3 running gear, or a new bespoke Z4 M drivetrain, then this car will certainly have a broader appeal and some racing heritage.

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Kimi Raikkonen, the modern day Ayrton Senna?

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Ever since his comeback Kimi Raikkonen hasn't really been a happy man. I don't think anyone has ever caught him smiling in 2012. Even though his fantastic driving has secured him 2 podium finishes in 5 races, he doesn't seem to be pleased with the result. In contrast, Schumacher hasn't yet had a podium finish since he returned to F1. Kimi finished 2nd in Bahrain, and 3rd in Spain, but in the press conferences he always expressed his anger at himself for finishing first. That sounds a lot like Ayrton Senna doesn't it? Ayrton Senna too had a similar mindset towards racing. He famously once said, "Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose."  Or maybe its just that Kimi has finally matured into an all round racing driver who "competes to win"(å la Ayrton Senna)?

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Pixelmator Tutorial-Graphic Novel Effect

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In this tutorial I will show you how to make your photos look like they've been drawn by a graphic novelist or an anime artist. It's very simple and it only needs Pixelmator. Fantastic tool this.

The image used here.

Open Pixelmator.

Open the image.

Use the Sharpen tool. I recommend that the sharpen level should be close to 90%.

Use the Threshold filter. Here is where you need to decide how you want the image to look like.

 In this case I think the image should have more black areas. Click OK and see the image.

The final finished image. Undo and change if you want to. Export the image in the format of your choice.

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Pixelmator Editing

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Using Pixelmator, Mac's answer to the mighty and clumsy Adobe Photoshop, I edited these photos with the help the quartz composer options.

Colour pencil effect

Glowy line effect

Film camera effect

Posterize effect

X-ray 1

X-ray 2

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Pixelmator Editing 2

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I combined a few filters together to create what I call the 'graphic novel' look. The photo used is of the new BMW M5.

Using different levels of the filters and other tools I created 3 different levels of graphic novelization.

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