NBA on NBC needs this Player Portrait system
After writing the case study on the Combat Kangaroos, I got to thinking about how I could create another system based on people not a radioactive ferocious marsupial. With the NBA season starting this week and my desire to get into sports illustrations, this seemed like the perfect subject to tackle.
I based this off of my icon that I’ve been using for the last few years. The original purpose was to create a minimalist self-portrait that had a clean cartoon feel that felt natural. Almost as if it was alive. Plus, I already had the system in place i just needed expand on it.
The initial plan was to make a system that would build upon itself as i created more and more players. This would also increase the pool of assets that I could choose from and as I got through the first 5 teams I saw a little overlap where I could reuse an asset. A nose here, a hair style there. What I didn’t expect was the need to make custom placements of eyes or mouths in order to capture the likeness of the player. Custom anything breaks the system.
Choosing form over function. This is my current art board.
Custom anything breaks the system.
After failing to get a half decent Giannis I decided to focus on likenesses more than the system for this project. Breaking the system makes more sense in this case. What doesn’t make sense is creating a system with pixel perfect placement where no one looks like their real world counter parts.
10 different assets featuring 60+ parts
The ultimate goal of this project would be to completing the rest of the NBA teams filled with half decent portraits of the players. When I’m done I can build an actual system with a strict rule set out of all the assets built in Figma.
If you have any questions shoot me an email or leave a comment on the social posts that link to this page. Keep pushing pixels.
