The Kicker

So I've been working on coloring all three pieces I did for Spree Touring as a way of warming up in the morning. Piece number 2 is now done and ready for its debut. This one is for a ride called the Kicker which is a 200k ride with 16,000 feet of climbing that occur in a constant series of 400-600ft climbs. So I channeled my inner Rube Goldberg and came up with this.

And the finished Brute.

So after my flats were done I went in and made moderate color changes, added a few layers that would push up the contrast (foe instance, adding a blue transparency that would make the illustration pop more off the orange background), a screen to give more play in the eyes and here we are. Easy... sort of.

The Brute... flats

I just laid in the flats for the finished colors. The colors chosen don't really matter but I try to keep the flats close to what I think I'll use just as a way of saving some time.

A little old but maybe fun for people to see. The whole thing is index cards and pilot G2 gel pen. But you could probably figure that out on your own. Not exactly subtle.

The Brute!

So I'm in the finishing stages of an illustration job for Spree Touring. So one of the three pieces is for a 200k ride with 12,000 ft of climbing called the Brute. The idea was pitched as a really buff dude plowing uphill. During the thumbnailing process it seemed that the brute is really the climb itself so the massive rider's legs became a bit noodley and I thought of the image as looking downhill towards him as he tries to grind his way past goats and stuff.

After finishing the rough and getting approval from ST I moved on to inking. Part way through, the idea of the text being a giant rock outcropping popped up so I emailed Don (an awesome guy to work with) to see if I could do the text treatments as well as the imagery. He agreed. After searching for the right font for a few days it became apparent that what I wanted wasn't out there so this morning found me drawing out the text.

It was then the relatively simple task of scanning everything in and assembling it in photoshop. Even though the job is done at this point, I would still like to go in and add color so I'll post that when I have it.