Go Brewers Go - Ryan Braun Illustration

Hi All,

Hope you're all having a good week.  As a native of the state of Wisconsin and a sports fan, I've got to say, it's been a lot of fun lately.  The Packers and UW are having great football seasons, UW and Marquette University basketball teams are consistent winners, and now the Milwaukee Brewers are in the playoffs for the first time in a long time.

I don't define myself by sports, but I've always enjoyed playing a variety of sports and watching my teams.  As an artist one of the subjects I enjoy working on are sports figures.  I was inspired to work on a fun illustration of my favorite Brewer, Ryan Braun.  This guy is the complete baseball player, reminiscent of guys like Paul Molitar and Robin Yount.  Anyhow, enough about me, here's the finished piece.

Braun - finished piece is high resolution, approximately 10" x 8"

Here's the technique I've developed that I like to use for some of my sports pictures (and it can be used for other art work as well).  It's easy and fun, but can be a little time consuming sometimes.  I start out with a pencil rendering of the subject.  Of course I work off of photo reference and use a variety of hard to soft pencils.

Initial pencil sketch after being scanned.

 
After scanning in to my iMac, I start working on the image; sharpening the images and the details.  I also try to bring out stronger values throughout - darker darks, crisp highlights and good contrast.  I normally use Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom tablet with a pen stylus.  I work it with greyscale values and also use varying opacity settings on the brush.

Pencil rendering after working lights and darks and
sharpening details.

Above is a little more fleshed out version of the pencil sketch.  You'll see I've added much more detail in the features throughout.  The darks are much more solid and even the lettering in the helmet logos and jerseys are tighter.  Sometimes I think I want to be a little too tight, but hey - that's how I roll.

In progress, after working in layers of color and texture.

Finally I start layering in various shades of blue.  I use a variety of blue hues.  I use a number of layers and differing levels of opacity on those layers.  It gives a nice layered and textured look.  I also use various brush shapes to really punch up the texture as well.  Finally, I add the name, rasterize the text and work the color on it.  Finishing touches also include a nice border to hold it all together.

The final piece.....Go Brewers!!

There you have it.  One of my favorite ball players, who is tearing up the playoffs.  Go Brewers!!  I hope you're enjoying your lives and your artwork wherever you are.  If you're not an artist, I hope you enjoy the blog and the artwork too.
Have a great week everyone.

Aloha,

Tom