Chugga – The Little Engine That Couldn’t

overworked engine gif

This was an illustration for a PowerPoint presentation. A simple drawing from Illustrator; exported through Photoshop as multi-layered as an animation. It had to do with machine maintenance and was in the instructional training portion of a manual on compressors, proper use and part upgrade. ~2003.

It started off more “cartoony” but went through several stages. The first versions were too stark and distracting from the content with too much so colour for the motor was changed from red to black to a softer green/blue. Then the implied face was taken out and the animation was simplified.

Final shaded example above is of easy blends in Illustrator and a little blur in Photoshop allowing for simple gif amimation.

It matter of trying to make technical manuals a little more interesting. So I turned to ‘fleshing out’ the forms to make it pop.