Revisiting a 2004 Olympics project

In the months leading up to the 2004 Olympics, the sports section of the Oakland Tribune ran a weekly feature about notable San Francisco Bay Area athletes who had participated in the Olympic games. It started with the first modern Olympics in 1904, then 1908 the next week, then 1912, and so on.

A small sample of some of the drawings for the feature. All Photoshop drawings.

The writer, Jeff Faraudo, would work up short pieces on a local athlete, other notable Olympic performances or personalities, important world news of the time and another significant sports story that would have been in the headlines. I would then gather reference -- with some of the more obscure reference being provided by Mr. Faraudo -- then I'd create four or five drawings and arrange the layout.

This went on for, what? 20 weeks? I did dozens of drawings and it was a close shave at deadline every time. It was a long, hard road considering I had other duties and other illustrations to create. Long hours and extra effort in the middle of the night on the lime green iMac at home was the key to getting it all done.

I learned a lot about speeding up the digital drawing process and simplifying the drawing process. Even if I wasn't happy with every drawing -- and I certainly wasn't -- it was a trial by fire that increased my familiarity with creating art digitally.

The End.
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