Blue-Collar Football League

Football illustrations during summer? Seems to be a trend for me.

The art director emailed me recently with a new illustration challenge. The article was to be about Cincinnati's semi-pro football league. It consists of mostly blue-collar workers volunteering to live out their football dreams. I was very excited about working with the AD again after our "Nerdcore" collaboration so I readily accepted the challenge. He lined up a blurb for me to work from, and I provided these sketches:
The blurb described the league's players as "heroes" for football fans that were tired of watching the NFL's Cincinnati Bengals lose. I latched onto that sentence, and I sketched up this idea of the players as heroes a la Superman/Clark Kent.
Continuing the "secret identity" motif, this sketch was a play off of helmets. I liked the idea of a welder flipping up his helmet to reveal a football helmet facemask beneath.
This last sketch is more action-oriented, however, I also felt it was the obvious solution; its the "safe" sketch: the sketch the art director can choose if my other concepts are too abstract.

Luckily, we think alike! He chose the first sketch, and I was so excited to render the final art:
I provided two versions (a different color background), and the AD chose the brighter of the two. I was super-psyched to add this piece to my portfolio, and I look forward to working with Cincinnati Magazine again in the future!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris
chris-whetzel.com