Sketching Epic Moments in Sports

Remember that feeling of pride and excitement when your home team wins a national tournament in football, basketball, baseball, or soccer?  Crowds cheering, You’re screaming at the top of your lungs, high fiving your friends and giving everyone you know a hug in celebration of an EPIC win!

Those images can be engraved in your head.  Solidifying its mental imagery.  One of these very moments happened to me with a sport that I hardly even watch.  In 2011, India won the Cricket World Cup landing a crushing defeat to their rival, Sri Lanka, by 6 wickets.  I was visiting my folks in Indiana and watched the final match with my cousin at Purdue University.  The experience was just awesome.

It’s been over 2 decades since India won the Cricket World Cup and Sri Lanka was a tough competitor.  Sometimes it’s fun to capture these moments on paper. To create your very own illustration that captures these EPIC moments.  One of the advantages of understanding drawing fundamentals is being able to transfer these techniques to drawing other subjects like people.  Virtually every subject teaches you how to break objects down to simple forms and setup your proportions.  So this is what I did.  Truth is, I don’t draw people that often and I will admit that I am in no way an expert in drawing people.  The challenge is what fascinates me and the internal drive to make sure I figure out a way to tackle the new mental problem.

Any time you are faced with drawing a new subject, it presents a whole new problem set that your brain must work to figure out.   So again, the power is in your observational skills on how to relate all the different forms and shapes and replicate it on paper.

I began with forcing myself to use a marker….not a pencil…a marker.  This would make me commit to the lines and NOT be able to erase.  If I mess up….I mess up…simple as that.  Who cares?  It’s just practice anyway.

Getting into the EPIC mindset

As I began to draw, I envisioned what it was like to be part of that team.  The feeling of comradery between the team mates and the emotional response from the crowd.   To get into a particular mood or mindset, I try to watch the game as I draw AND put inspirational music on.  The music serves as the backdrop and enhances the emotional factor when sketching.  It gives you a rhythm and sets the stage and prepares your mind to experience the excitement.  It’s simply an exhilarating mental state to be in.  Drawing, listening to music, problem solving, right and left brain hemispheres in full capacity working together to create.

This is the essence of being able to identify with the epic moment.  To be able to replicate it on paper.  Sometimes I envision the scene with the music in my mind.

Sketch Notes:

1.  Establish your perspective View

2.  Determine the proportion and sketch in your ellipses

3.  Observe key characteristics of what makes a certain Style part of the Brand

4.  Continue to detail out the Sketch

5.  Research the Subject Matter

6.  Create Overlays to refine the Design

7.  Add finishing details with Cross Hatching and Shading