We love getting into the details of our images, but this project took it to a whole new macro level. We took on the challenge of digitally recreating the wings of a butterfly, from hundreds of thousands of geometric scales and re-designed its shape to resemble a pair of breathing lungs. The campaign, titled Metamorphosis, was to bring awareness to a new drug design that may transform the treatment approach of patients with ROS1-Positive lung cancer. The wings were inspired by the Blue Morpho and Monarch butterflies, for their metamorphosis in nature to their adaptive capabilities for survival.

PRE-PRODUCTION | CONCEPT ART

The process started with researching the shapes and forms of a butterfly’s wing, alongside the makeup of the human lung. Each has its own defining features, both in their anatomical design, but also in how they move and transform. The challenge was to merge both these elements in a way that was immediately understandable to the viewer, and both the still and motion elements really conveyed the breathing of the lungs with the delicate and beautiful details of the butterfly.

The cellular transformation of the metamorphosis process is impressive by itself, but the microscopic complexity of the butterfly’s wing is altogether mind-blowing. The wings of a blue Morpho butterfly are formed of up to a million tiny overlapping scales, arranged in a diamond pattern and appear as the most vivid blue colour in nature, and yet they contain no blue pigment. In fact, it's the micro structures of the scales that cancels out specific wavelengths, reflecting and intensifying only the blue frequencies of light. The wings themselves are very thin and soft and react more like silk fabric stretched out across a tiny framework of nerves. It's this fabric quality that allows the wings to bend and fold, and even has creases in places!

FINAL