The making of the SG-Trans calendar

The dragon was chosen as the company’s symbol by Italian brand designers in the mid-20th century. Deciding to take this idea further, to modernize the image and use it to create transformers made up of rolling stock that would symbolize areas of work of the company.

Starting by preparing models for calendar pages.

The first idea that comes to mind is to employ blueprints, but using them for each of the 12 months would be boring.

Rendering pictures for future sketches.

Trying more versions of the concept.

Not exactly the best approach, we need to come up with design ideas for all months at the same time.

As a result, arriving at these variants.

The second designer suggests his ideas. Symbols of different cargoes with various achievements of the company in numbers. The process of transformation of a railcar into a dragon robot. And simple dragon close-ups.

We wouldn’t have enough time to develop the transformation idea, but the others are shown to the client. The client asks to combine dragon close-ups with large month numbers.

Combining.

Client: OK.

All this time we have also been working on creating models of the dragons. First a basic body shape.

Moving on to the armor.

Fixing errors.

Creating five dragons that differ by armor details. Giving each one a basic rig to make working on poses and perspectives easier.

Choosing the best angles.

Combining them with the numbers.

Working on the cover.

Making drafts of effects for post-processing.

Rendering the final images, retouching, applying effects, preparing the layout grid and the color proof file.

Adjusting the colors. To the press!