Yeah, it's been a LONG time between Posts for me.. So, I thought I'd share a bit of "process" on an Image that I've just completed.. It's yet another "Hall Of Fame" -type personality, in my ever-growing series of BURBY Baseball Cards!
This time 'round, our featured ALL-STAR player, is none other than: Sasa Radosavcevic.. An Animation Design guy, that (last time I checked) works at the Elliott Animation studio..
What exactly is BURBY, you ask? Very good question..
BURBY is to Baseball, what "3-on-3" is to Basketball.. Still a 9-inning game; but with abbreviated teams. And "ghost" baserunners to run the basepaths, depending on how well each batter hits the ball into play.
It's always been called "BURBY", where I grew up (in Scarborough).. Only the less-sophisticated, still refer to it as "Wall Ball"! haha
Every Card first starts out with some reference photos.. I shoot them, as best I can. Sasa's photos turned out a bit dark. And he was wearing a black t-shirt, which also didn't help.. But I made-do.
Next, I do a simple tracing of the silhouettes on a lightbox, to ensure I maintain the proper proportions. Then, I take out the photos (again) and try my best to map out all of the various angles & planes on the Face & Figure..
As you can see, I hadda kind of make up a lot of the Jersey details.. And remove the bike gloves from the Hands. Occasionally I'll make slight adjustments to the angle of things (like the Bat), if I think it'll look better..Generally, the only instruction I'll insist upon during the photoshoots.. Is that the Subject should look "determined" and "confident".. These Cards are intended to make us look like a kickass Baseball Club. Not a bunch of goofy jokesters!
The next stage is transferring the Drawing to a Card template that I've pre-designed.. Everything is hand-lettered. And the overall Design elements are all original. Though some, are heavily based on similar (pre-existing) Baseball designs..
The "B" on the hats, is based on the Gothic lettering of the Detroit Tigers logo. And the piping and overall colors of the uniform, are based on those of the Atlanta Braves.. The Logo character in the Bottom Left of each Card, was (if memory serves) based loosely on an old Cincinnati Reds design..
The coloring is intended to mimic old 50's-era "painted" Baseball Cards.. The colors are applied in light, layered washes of pencil crayon. If you try to apply the washes too fast, the linework begins to show. So slow & steady, is the way to go!The sky is a relatively-simple (one time) application of Light Blue col-erase. But things like the hats and fleshtones, can require as many as a half-dozen different colors, layered over top of each other!
I should add that the Backgrounds are (also) all based on actual Cards, that I've used as reference. In some cases, I've added (or flopped) some details, to make the overall Composition/Layout work.. The signatures are also "inked" on the Card template, prior to any color being laid down.. And I always do the Eyes last. 'Cuz they can smudge & get wrecked, if you try and do them early on.
Below, is the finished Final Result..
BURBY was a fun & informal way to spend time with good friends on a Sunday afternoon.. But we (as a group) also enjoyed a healthy competitive spirit. Each game's "statistics" were carefully noted & recorded, over the years. So, there's a LONG profile (for each Player) that will eventually adorn the "back" of each respective Card!We played out our last recorded game, sometime in 2005.. As we all got older, it became increasingly difficult to get everyone together.. Though recently, there's been talk of organizing a limited-series of "OldTimer" games for 2009? We'll see how far that plan goes.. I'm optimistic.
I've still got a number of unfinished Cards to complete. But finding the time to commit to working on them, hasn't been easy. With Animation work for me, tediously slow now.. I decided to revisit them.
Sasa has been the only Player that still consistently whines about my not finishing his Card. So I felt it was only appropriate, that I finish his FIRST.. heh
Hope he'll like the way it turned out.. He certainly waited long enough for it!!
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6 comments:
I've always loved the look of this colouring technique. I'm always amazed at your patience. I know I don't have that kind of patience.
I still have my card you made me nearly 20 years ago. I'm sure Sasa will treasure his card as much as I've treasured mine. Let me know when the old timer game is and I'll try to get my old timer bones to Scarborough.
Spyrunner
Yeah, Dave.. We'd definitely LOVE to get as many of the old players together, as possible!
Marty is coming to Toronto again, next Summer. When me & Suzanne were at Rob Hiemstra's place, we'd talked about organizing a get-together. I'm thinking that if you could come up, at that time.. Perhaps we could also squeeze in a bigtime OldTimer BURBY game?
We'll see.. It's a wayz off yet.
Always nice to see 'process' posts. Great pic.
Thanks for sharing .
excellent drawing. you mastered all the lumps and forms of that dude's face.
and really nice bettie post above, i liked her pictures too =(
I was young as a butter.What lumps and forms?A Ryan? :-)
So mr Rich after so many years I finally got it.
Cheers
S
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