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!