Emtropy

I'm finally back with another update! Hopefully I'll be able to post several more drawings fairly regularly until I get caught up.  But this is me we're talking about so...we'll see what happens.  Haha.

Now, one of our 2013 League Captains (and Uproar Team Captain), Emtropy, was voted in as the featured poster girl for May.

Yes, May.  Clearly I am far behind on this blog updating business.

Without further delay, here she is!

Bringin' chaos to the universe!
#5X5 - Emtropy!

Detail close-up!
Look at all those shiny pyramid studs!  And the shiny leggings!

We actually just ended our official 2013 bouting season, so as you can imagine, I've done quite a few of these drawings by now.  Even so, Em's drawing is one of my absolute favorites!

I think the reason why I love Em's drawing so much (besides the fact that it's of Em) is that everything about this drawing came together for me.  And it's always satisfying when things work out even better than planned.  But from the pose, to her face, to all the little details that make the image "pop," it all just fit together to make a really satisfying, cohesive drawing.

A detail close-up of her skates

I always put a great deal of effort into these drawings.  Always.  Even so, I still often generalize certain aspects, like safety gear and skates. Em's drawing, however, was the first time that I really took the time to draw out all the hardware of the skates themselves.

Looking at the detail close-ups of the skates, you can see that I made the effort to accurately depict the boot style, plus the shape of the plates.  I even drew in the trucks and the freaking bushings/cushions.  It helped that I have the same skates, and therefore had a visual reference available.  Otherwise I wouldn't have been able to get as specific as I did.  I did leave out the laces/grommets, however, since most of the laces are completely invisible beneath the detachable overlay/lace cover.

I don't mean to toot my own horn or anything, but save for the logo that I omitted, I drew the skates accurately enough that anyone familiar with Riedell skates should be able to tell you exactly what model/set-up it is.  

Seriously.  Go ahead.  10 points to whoever can tell me what boot model that is. 

(Disclaimer: Points are not redeemable for anything other than bragging rights.  Okay, maybe a high-five.)

The final version of the poster featuring Emtropy

Now, last night was actually Em's very last practice with us.  I think I can speak for quite a few people when I say that I am ever so heartbroken to see her go because not only is she just a wonderful person, but her leadership has been nothing short of exemplary.  Still, the heartbreak is made bearable by knowing that her departure is so that she can focus on beginning a new chapter in her personal life.

Em, you've been a truly amazing captain, and it's been an honor skating with you.  When the overwhelming task of training everyone suddenly fell into your lap, not only did you pick up that responsibility with calm and grace, but you helped push us to excel even farther than I think any of us really knew to expect. And you did it while remaining humble, fair, thoughtful, organized (ironic, given your name ;P ) and remarkably patient.  To merely state that I am grateful for all the time and effort that you've put into leading our league seems far too empty a gesture in return for everything you've done for us.  Still, I hope you walked away knowing (and feeling) just how much we all truly love and respect you.

And if not, drop on by a practice soon so we can all swarm you with sweaty, smelly hugs :)

So much effin' derby love to you, Emtropy!  And best of luck in everything you do!

-------------2014 Update! ----------------

I am ever so happy to report that Emtropy couldn't stay away for too long :)  She's back to being a full-fledged member of our league, and we couldn't be more ecstatic! 

Terrapin Flyer

For April's bout poster, the league needed to vote in a skater from team Onslaught.  The vote nearly unanimously came to Terrapin Flyer, who took her name from a Grateful Dead cover band :)

"If this Dame hits you, you should be grateful you're not dead!"

The pose for Terrapin's drawing was based from one of Steve Jurkovic's amazing bout photographs.  As always, I made some modifications, but the pose was largely left in tact.

Now, it's time for me to make a bit of a confession...

...Normally I do 100% of the artwork myself, and I refuse to use random images pulled from the internet.  HOWEVER, I admittedly copy/pasted part of the drawing from google image search.

OH, THE SCANDAL!

Well, sorta.  It was just the Grateful Dead sticker on her helmet. Seriously, when I'm already averaging 10 hours of work on these illustrations, re-drawing an ornate logo seems like a stupid idea.  Sooo, I think that was permissible, no?

You're free to disagree with me, but I'm going to ignore you.  Just sayin'.

Now, here's the bout poster that Terrapin graced!

As you can see, I returned to the same color scheme as the season schedule designs (green tinted images, black & white striped background).  It just looks slightly less cluttered than when I had the colors "reversed." 

While it's not an ideal image for me to use, I particularly like the photo in the bottom right-hand corner.  Normally I wouldn't want to use a photo of a skater if you can't see her face, but the lines created by that beautiful lunge were just too good to pass up.  Seriously.  Gorgeous.  

Masochistic Molly & Bully The Kid

2013 brought about a lot of design-specific changes for my league.  Well, and structural ones too, but you're not here to read about any of that stuff, right? 

Anyway, yes!  Design changes!  I mentioned in my last post about how the league did away with themed bouts, meaning that I had the opportunity to develop a set style to incorporate in all of our posters and programs this season. It was also decided that because we have 2 teams (an A-team and a B-team), that we would alternate each month the team that the chosen poster girl was from.  This way we would be evenly featuring skaters from both teams instead of unintentionally favoring one over another.

I ignored this new rule though for our season opener's bout poster.  To kick the season off right, I decided to feature 2 skaters--one from each team.  Let's start off with the skater chosen from Onslaught (our B-team), Masochistic Molly!

"She's hell on wheels...baby she's gunnin for you!" - See more at: http://dupagederbydames.com/skaters/bully-the-kid#sthash.Of3j3E1s.dpuf

"She's hell on wheels...baby she's gunnin for you!" - See more at: http://dupagederbydames.com/skaters/bully-the-kid#sthash.Of3j3E1s.dpuf

"She's hell on wheels...baby she's gunnin for you!" - See more at: http://dupagederbydames.com/skaters/bully-the-kid#sthash.Of3j3E1s.dpuf

#693 - Masochistic Molly!

The post from this drawing was based off of a photo taken of her during one of last season's bouts. I did modify it slightly though so that she was looking more towards the viewer.

I know that I tend to get really anal about small, insignificant details that no one else would care about, and Molly's belt is a perfect example of this.  Despite how carefully I studied images of that belt and how meticulously I counted, I kept getting frustrated with how the different colored blocks didn't line up exactly.  I probably went back and recolored that thing at least twice.  I think I have a problem.  

Anyway here are some close-up detail shots of her lovely tattoos:

I scoured facebook for the best shots I could find of Molly's tattoos, so while these aren't 100% accurate, they're still pretty close...  And I have to say, they were pretty fun to draw!  In fact, they were probably my favorite parts of the entire drawing.

 Now, from Uproar (our A-team), Bully the Kid!

#29 - Bully the Kid!
"She's hell on wheels...Baby she's gunnin' for you!"

"She's hell on wheels...baby she's gunnin for you!" - See more at: http://dupagederbydames.com/skaters/bully-the-kid#sthash.Of3j3E1s.dpuf

"She's hell on wheels...baby she's gunnin for you!" - See more at: http://dupagederbydames.com/skaters/bully-the-kid#sthash.Of3j3E1s.dpuf

"She's hell on wheels...baby she's gunnin for you!" - See more at: http://dupagederbydames.com/skaters/bully-the-kid#sthash.Of3j3E1s.dpuf

"She's hell on wheels...baby she's gunnin for you!" - See more at: http://dupagederbydames.com/skaters/bully-the-kid#sthash.Of3j3E1s.dpuf

"She's hell on wheels...baby she's gunnin for you!" - See more at: http://dupagederbydames.com/skaters/bully-the-kid#sthash.Of3j3E1s.dpuf

In Bully's case, her pose wasn't based on one particular photo, but rather of the mental image I have of her from playing with her on the flat-track.  Bully often takes on the pivot role, taking charge of the pack, so I often picture her hustling back and forth and shouting her orders to rally the troops.

And here's a close-up detail of one of her favorite accessories!  Her dual-pistol belt buckle which just happens to sport a broken heart (like in our league's logo--how perfect).

Bully loves guns!  In fact, I'm pretty sure that she has a tattoo
of one (or two?) on her ankle that I forgot to draw (whoops...)

And here's a look at the final bout poster.

If you've seen the season schedule poster, you may have noticed that a couple of design elements were altered: The colors of the photos and the striped background specifically.

In the season schedule poster, the photos are in a green & black duotone while the striped background is gray-monochromatic.  I swapped that around for this bout poster.  The images were made black & white, and the stripes in shades of green.  The idea was to have a little bit of contrast between the posters without really altering much of the established style.

If I can be perfectly honest, in the end I didn't like this color swap.  Derby posters tend to look very cluttered and busy anyway, but I felt that this actually made it look even busier.  Or perhaps having the photos in black & white made them appear as though they were receding too far into the background.  Either way, subsequent bout posters returned to the former style (green & black photos, gray-scale stripes).

Hope you guys like!  Until next time!



 

Two Thousand and Thirteen's Style

So here I am, finally ready to post about the art I've worked on in 2013!  And it's June...Meaning the year is almost half-over already!  Insanity!  I guess I had better get a move on with posting, no?

Now, one of the biggest changes to the artwork I've been creating for the league this season is a singular, consistent style to carry through all of our marketing.  You see, our bout committee decided to do away with bout themes, meaning I no longer had to spend extra time conceptualizing/designing different styles for each bout poster (like the ode to the 80s and Patrick Nagel for "Smack to the Future" or the beer stein and German architectural elements from "Knocktoberfest").  Don't get me wrong, themes are fun and all, but they're so much extra work...and kind of stylistically frenetic.  This season I could actually develop a set style--our branding.

To get the ball (or skate) rolling (har har har), I started putting together designs for season schedules.  In the end I created 3: A poster, a postcard and a business card size as well.  That way we had a solid assortment of materials that we could put on display and distribute with ease.

The DuPage Derby Dames 2013 Season Schedule Poster (11"x17")
Featured: Crissy Crossbones, Masochistic Molly, Roary Feldman, Katzen Jammer
Coincidentally, all of these ladies (and lion) are tall and leggy.  Rawr :3

The fronts and backs of the season schedule postcard and business card
Featuring: Emtropy, Katty WhompAss, Give 'Em L, Kid Vicious and Code Green

The response from my league-mates on the new style has been very positive.  Everyone seems to dig the torn paper look. To get those jagged edges, I actually did rip up strips of paper and then scanned them.  While the use of the torn paper was a literal attempt at creating visual layers without too much clutter (which I admittedly struggle with since I'm an illustrator and not a graphic designer), it was largely inspired by this sort of scene I had running through my head.

I kept picturing this wall outside a club that was just plastered with tons of flyers for exciting events like concerts and all sorts of live performances.  Except all the flyers were ours.  And each time you tore down a flyer, there was still another one of ours underneath. Layer after layer of Dames, shouting, screaming, compelling the viewer to come watch us bout.  No matter how hard a person tried, these posters weren't going to come down--not until everyone's arses were in our seats!  That intensity was what I was hoping to capture in the design.

Question is, did I succeed or fail?     

Now, if you've been following the previous artwork that I've posted on here, you'll notice another big change...

...PHOTOGRAPHS!

At this point we had amassed a decent amount of images from wonderful photographers like Steve Jurkovic, and it seemed a shame not to utilize them!  I edited the photos by adding in motion blurs to draw focus to the featured skaters.  Otherwise the images were largely untouched.

If you're wondering where the skater illustrations went to, no need to worry.  I still draw them.  However, I only do so for bout posters!  And that's what I'll be posting next--the bout poster from our 2013 season opener!  But you'll have to wait until my next update for that one.  It's getting late, and I have a day job to haul my arse to in the morning :P 

Knuckles, Out! 

Wes L. Mania, Dee Troit Diesel & Annevel Knievel

Our last home bout of the 2012 season was in November, the month synonymous with pilgrims, turkeys and overeating.  Unsurprisingly, it's common to see November bouts take on similar themes.  However, our league decided to take things in a different direction.  Instead, we chose to use our Season Closer to honor our veterans.

I have to say that our season closer went even better than any of us could have hoped--We really went out with a bang!  And I don't even mean because both of our A and B teams emerged victorious (though double victories are always fantastic).  A local VFW came out to perform the national anthem, veterans were treated to discounted tickets, and The Chicago Riots Junior Roller Derby team play mini bouts during our half-times to a completely packed house.  But enough about the bout, let's get to the art.  That is why you're here after all.  Well that, and because I'm just that cool.

Nah, it's for the art.  Let's be honest here.  

Because this was our season closer, I really wanted to do something extra special for this poster.  So, instead of drawing just one poster girl, I drew 3!  Er, sorta.  More like 2 skaters and 1 referee (who just happens to be a dude):  Dee Troit Diesel, Annevel Knievel and Wes L. Mania!

The original sketch of Dee, complete with a myriad of notes

Dee in color!

Annevel's original sketch.  Pay no attention to the tiny ninja thumbnail in the corner.
I said stop looking at it!

In color and rocking her trademark flag legs!
By now she has a new Evel Knievel style helmet that's just as patriotic.
God Bless 'Merica!

Wes' sketch

Wes in color!

So why the decision to feature a ref instead of 3 skaters?  Well, refs and NSOs are just as vital to a roller derby league as its skaters--bouts and scrimmages just don't work without them!  However, they tend to get a lot more crap (and from both teams) if skaters don't agree with calls they've made, or failed to make as the case sometimes is.  Roller derby is an incredibly complicated and intense sport, so this happens a LOT.  That alone is enough to deserve a feature, don't you think?  And if you disagree, well, our refs are effin' awesome, too.  So there. 

With having pushed myself to draw not 1, but 3 different people on this poster, I was once again left without enough time to shade them.  I hate leaving drawings in flat colors unless that was what I had intended from the beginning... :/  Even so, the rest of the poster still turned out okay.

Thanks to this poster, Wes, Dee and Annevel get requests to recreate these saluting poses for photos.  Even now, several months later.  In fact... 

Wes, Dee & Annevel throwing their salutes at a bowling outing a couple of months ago.
And yes, they're wearing matching Hawaiian shirts...
This wasn't even an official roller derby related event.  We were all just hanging out, haha.

Hope you liked!  Now, time for my shameless plug!

This Saturday I'll be skating in the American Cancer Society's Walk & Roll in Chicago!  I skated in this last year as well, and not only is it a lot of fun, but it's for a good cause!  I mean, c'mon, who doesn't want to kick cancer squarely in its junk?!

My goal this year is to raise $100, but as of this moment I'm still not even halfway there.  And I only have 2 days left!  So if you happen to be able to spare even just $5 for a donation, I'd really, truly appreciate it!  And not just me!  Everyone who has ever fought with or been touched by cancer. 

If you'd like to make a donation to the American Cancer Society, just click here! 

To anyone who has already donated, and to those who will, THANK YOU :)

Crissy Crossbones & Knocktoberfest

Whhhat?  Another new post already?  Why yes.  Yes there is.

I'm itching to get this art blog up to date with this season's artwork, but I don't want to skip over any of the drawings I've done in order to do so.  So, I'll be plowing through the last few from last season within the next couple of days.  It's not exactly a consistent posting schedule but...eh, whatever.

Anyway, our bout committee decided on "Knocktoberfest" as the theme for our September 2012 home bout (contrary to the cognate, Oktoberfest actually takes place in September).  Besides the fact that the timing was right, this bout also happened to kick off the beginning of beer sales.  That's right, we serve beer at our bouts!

Selected to be our poster girl this time around was Crissy Crossbones.  While most of the other skater drawings I had done consisted of more dynamic "action" poses, I decided that I wanted to take a different approach with Bones.  The plan was to draw her reclining back in a giant beer stein :P

 
As you can see here, I drew the original sketch in a humble notebook. Haha.  For whatever reason I'm almost disappointed that the notebook lines didn't really show up in this scan though.  I have no idea why.

Bones' drawing was actually the first time I had to incorporate a tattoo (butterflies on her right shoulder).  Well, I didn't have to.  But if I was going to put as much effort into these drawings as I had been, it seemed wrong to leave out something that was permanently inked onto her skin.  But I digress...

Anyway, because I try to create a believable likeness in these drawings, a bit of a predicament arises whenever the poster girl has a tattoo or some other distinguishing physical trait.  That is, I have to scour their photos in the hopes that I can find some where it is prominently featured.

Of course the easier option would be for me to just take a photo if them myself, only it takes away some of the mystery and surprise of the poster girl's identity.  It's supposed to be a secret until the poster is revealed, so going around snapping photos of someone's body parts seems a bit telling...

I run into the same problem time after time with eye color as well.  As much as I love my teammates, I don't stare into each and every one of their eyes meaningfully enough to memorize what color they all are.  So sorry, Ladies, if I've ever used the incorrect eye color for your drawings.  But at least now you know why.  

Time was (as it always does) working against me, and I had to leave Bones at flat colors in order to meet the deadline.  But like I did with Speeds Kate's drawing, I plan on going back in at some point to give her a full-shading treatment.  I just hope it doesn't take me 6 months to do it...

Bones "modeling" our new jersey style

Even though I did save a bit of time by leaving the drawing in flat colors, that time was probably eaten up again by some of the detail work.  Besides custom-made leg-warmers with her skater name and number, she also had these decals on her helmet that spelled out her name in some sort of skeleton/bone font.  I still don't actually know that I found the correct one, but if anything it's awfully close.  The number on her helmet was doodled in, however, because the font's numbers looked a little too different.   At least, I think that's why.  Maybe the font didn't even include the numbers?  It was so long ago by now I really can't remember.

Here's a close-up detail of the helmet decal.
Huh, never noticed until now that I had it running into
the holes in her helmet... -_-*

Now, aside from drawing a giant beer stein, I really wasn't too sure of how to incorporate Oktoberfest into the design.  My knowledge base of Oktoberfest in general was (and still is) pretty limited.  So I took to the internet and consulted my good friend, Google Image Search.

What I kept seeing over and over again were patterns made of white and light blue diamonds, orange flags and busty lederhosen-clad fraulein.  Yeah, was not going to incorporate that last one...  But the diamonds and orange flags--no problem!

There was an attempt to incorporate German architectural elements into the design as well, but unfortunately most of that was blocked by the orange banners.  Still, you can see bits and pieces of it at the very top and bottom of the poster design.

The final bout poster for "Knocktoberfest"

Looking at the poster, I should have drawn Bones and the beer stein at the same time.  I purposely drew them separately to allow for compositional flexibility, but as a result I feel like her seated position isn't convincing.  Not in this particular stein anyway.  Eh well.  Lesson learned.

Fonts Used: Germanica, Market Deco

Tiki-Flavored Sammich

So something weird happened in August of 2012.  My league decided to vote me in as poster girl...

Seriously.  Weird.

But even weirder than being voted in was having to draw myself.  Don't get me wrong, since a lot of the art I worked on back in college was semi-autobiographical, I'm quite used to drawing myself. However, it was never really with the intention of promoting anything besides my own work. Plus, while I'm no wallflower, I'm not really much of an attention-seeker either.  

The familiarity with my own form at least meant that I could finish the drawing relatively fast.  Well you know, fast for me anyway.  But I definitely spent more time trying to figure out how to compose the rest of the poster.

This particular bout was Tiki themed--fitting as the last bout of the summer.  Anyway, as much time as I spent researching Polynesian and Islander design elements, I didn't really have the time or energy to draw much more than the skater illustration.  So I was super lucky to come across this fabulous font by designer David Occhino.  It's called "Tangaroa" and is based off of real elements of Maori and South Pacific designs.      

He was generous enough to provide a free, supplemental variant of the font (Tangaroa Glyphs) right on his website, and it was just perfect.  I used several of the glyphs as border elements and to scatter as background textures.  It was a quick solution to a lack of time and graphics.  Here's the final poster:

We've long since retired this jersey style.
And I've stopped skating in shorts in favor of capris.
Relevance?  None.  You're welcome.

While this wasn't our league's first doubleheader, it was the the first time that our A and B-teams skated under their official team names!  Our B-Team is known as Onslaught and our A-Team is Uproar.  Cleverly plays off the lioness imagery, no?

Oh, and remember how I said that I study several photos of a skater in order to properly depict their mannerisms and stride?  Well, I just wanted to share an image that a photographer happened to capture at that bout.

Image by DBH Photo

I'm skating with almost the exact same pose as the one I drew for the poster :)  Just thought that was amusing enough to share.  Feel free to disagree.  But doing so might make you a jerk face. 

That's right.  I said it.

Fonts used: Tangaroa Glyphs, Highjinks, Feast of Flesh, Market Deco

Questions?  Comments?  Gifts of puppies?  Feel free to leave them here :) 

Speeds Kate 2.0

Finally finished up shading Speeds Kate's poster girl drawing from last year!  I thought about leaving it on a plain background, but of course my caffeine-addled brain just couldn't leave well enough alone.  So here it is!

Aside from the shading, I didn't really make any changes to this drawing other than changing the color of her knee pads to reflect the ones she has now (they match her gloriously purple skates!).  I was thinking about changing her hair color too because for a while it was this gorgeous teal with a purple pivot stripe running down it.  By now it's returned to its natural blonde so I left it as-is.

In case anyone is wondering about what fonts were used--> All Ages and Ghetto Marquee 

Btw, I borrowed the title from a fb comment left by our bout photographer, Steve Jurkovic :)

Hope you guys like it!

Speeds Kate and The Superhero Slam

In June of 2012, my league hosted a bout called "Superhero Slam."  While roller derby bouts are always fun, this one was especially so for a couple of reasons.  First of all, as we had newly formed a B-team, this was our first double header.  Double the derby goodness!  Second, we all really got into the superhero spirit.  Lots of us donned masks and capes--Some of us even full-on costumes!  And by someone of us, I mean me :P  I had made a Robin (as in Batman's sidekick) costume years back and brought it out one last time to wear while I wasn't skating.  I'm sorry to say that I don't really have any good photos of me wearing it (at least since getting into better shape), but I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't pretty freaking awesome.  Even had a working utility belt :)

The league voted in Speeds Kate as that month's poster girl.  Easily one of the best skaters I've seen, I can only wish that I had half her speed, footwork and tenacity.  And despite her tiny frame, Speeds has this intensity to her that I hoped I'd be able to accurately capture in her drawing.

 

She really does stick out her tongue like that.  Sort of a Speeds Kate trademark :P

From a compositional standpoint I know it looks like an awful lot of colors and patterns, but I based her boutfit on what she had actually worn.  Like those shorts and those tights--I did not make those up.  The rainbow socks I did, but really, those are a staple in most derby girls' wardrobes (I am the rare exception).  And yes, she really does have crazy-purple skates :) 

Because I was dealing with a major time crunch, I unfortunately had to leave Speeds' drawing in flat colors like you see here.  However, it was always my intention to go back in and give it the fully shaded color-treatment.  I don't have it here for you now, but it is almost done!  So until then, here's a look at her bout poster to tide you over.

With the bout being superhero-themed and all, it only made sense to design the poster to look like a comic book cover.  Again, I had to keep the background fairly simple because I just didn't have a lot of time.  If I were to go and re-work this design, one of the things I'd do is incorporate some Roy Lichtenstein-inspired benday dot patterns, in addition to putting more effort into the title design.  I had included a drop shadow behind Speeds' drawing to help her pop off the page more, but I hadn't noticed until it was too late that it had disappeared.  Eh well. 

Anyway, hope you guys liked Speeds' drawing!  And I'll be sure to post her newly re-colored drawing here once it's finished!