I worked on an investigation by into the suspects behind the Nord Stream pipeline bombing in the Baltic Sea, released on the anniversary of the attacks by Zeit newspaper. You can read it here https://www.zeit.de/politik/2023-09/nord-stream-pipelines-attack-anniversary-english 

I created a suite of animated and illustrated assets that could be used dynamically across film, web, podcast, print and social. The series brought a diverse range of resources under a single language, including a map, portraits of personalities that are well-known and figures who wished they weren't, narrative scenes and forensic detail. 

I’m often asked to depict water, oceans, waves, stormy weather, and each storytelling case presents its unique challenges. After referencing footage of the gas leak, it was clear my own intimate water-based brushstrokes would struggle to scale to the enormity of the sea. Instead, I pursued a broader sense of the behavior of the explosive bubbling gas leak and sketched out my intention for the movement (fig 2). 

Fortunately, my art director could see where I was heading from my broad animatic, with more detail emerging in the painting of the individual frames (fig 1). The sweeping impression of the explosion had more immediacy for its intended audience on social media, desktop website (fig 4) and short film (fig 3). I chose a simpler loop on the surrounding waves to direct focus towards the explosion.

This scene would occupy a larger space in the newspaper, so I painted a bespoke illustration only for print with greater complexity while maintaining a direct connection to the painted frames in the animation. 

A detail of a figure sighted smoking and cycling on a ship dock was asking to be illustrated with emphasis on atmosphere and mystery. I had the smoke obscuring his face, already in shadow, and chose it as the only moving element in this foreboding scene.

The journey of the rented yacht, Andromeda, was animated on a hand painted map for online, and as a still illustration for the newspaper.