NCAA Preview for LA Times

I was very excited to created this year's NCAA Preview cover for  The Los Angeles Times! This was a large scale project for me, and I enjoyed putting a lot of hours into it. My wife? Not so much :)

The premise of the image is about how LA's "local" teams of Arizona and Gonzaga will have to face powerful teams from the Big East conference during March Madness. The big teams this year are Kentucky, Virginia, Duke, Wisconsin, and Villanova.

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Roughs (the AD actually considered these as sketches and sent back a layout with his favorite)

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Final sketch from selected rough (went a little nuts with this one)

I'm SO happy they liked the idea of using the mascots (Kentucky Wildcats, Virginia Cavaliers, Duke Blue Devils, Villanova Wildcats, Wisconsin Badgers). A requested alternate version with the smaller teams as mascots (Arizona's Wildcat wears a hat and that bulldog just looks so silly):

You may notice that the small figures changed in the final art; it was a requested revision that the reader be able to see the team names on the players' backs. I much prefer the twisting figures in the sketch, but I totally understand and was happy to do the revision. Also both team numbers are "2" as a way to reflect the teams' seeds (college basketball jargon :)

(detail)

Thanks for reading!

Enjoy the Day,
Chris