Finish on "Slow Start"

The only adjustments I made was to slightly elongate the running posture -- shifting the hind arm upward and thrusting the head forward more. This gives Marco a more driving look and gives added space for drawing his face.
Time for a win folks.

Slow starts

With the Herd actually favored in a game, I find it worth pointing out the importance of getting a fast start — something Marshall has been struggling with horribly this season.
I had thought of one of those dream-like scenarios where your running away from a monster and you seem to be working like crazy but getting nowhere. But that would involve too many other elements such as "the monster" and giving the entire illustration a dream-like quality. This would go against the need to keep it simple. Most readers don't have the time to decipher an illustration unless its a Rube Goldberg-like thing. An illustration either succeeds in communicating quickly or it fails in confusion.
Also, the Herd's struggles are not derived from fanciful thoughts, but rather, a harsh reality. So here, I needed to show that reality.
Aside from doing a typical running posture, I needed to make sure I turned the bucket just enough to show its contents — and that those contents were solid.

Ready for primetime? finish

Ready for primetime?

We’re going with something a bit different for this game. Sure the Herd’s is making strides, but still coming up short — and sure, Southern Miss won the division last season.

But what’s really different this game is it’s a rare Sunday night prime time game and an opportunity for the Herd to shine for a national television audience. Also, to note they will be competing for air time against the NFL’s Sunday night game featuring Pittsburgh at Denver.

So my initial idea was to have a Steeler and Bronco in mid-grapple, distracted by a face-off stance between Marco and the Golden Eagle. The upper left sketch was for planning placement of turned heads and fists full of jersey. On the right hand, although traditionally stale, is the standard schoolyard face-off stance.

To de-emphasize the NFL game, I’ll reduce the size of those characters to make them look at a distance.

Breaking down barriers

As from the previous post, the upper body and feet were emphasized. In the finish, the legs were just roughly done to connect the lower torso to the feet -- not a lot of thought, but they turned out fine.

I had originally thought of putting the wall all the way around Marco, but that would make for a messy composition. So with just the one wall face, in Photoshop, I lightened up the portion closest to Marco to draw better attention to him rather than the wall.

To capture frustration or optimism …

Despite the Herd’s better play against Memphis, things seemed to go awry at the most inopportune times – particularly on a solid final drive for the win that was highlighted by a really bad snap and what seemed to be a miscommunication on a 4^th down pass play that ended the chance.

The small sketch in the upper right is the reaction to the season. The Monty Python-esque “16-ton weight” inscribed with “Murphy’s Law” landing on the mangled Marco.

So again, get the reaction out of the way with that sketch and looking forward to the next week.

But I was struck by Coach Snyder’s comment that despite the mounting losses, the team continues to prepare each week with hard hitting and up-tempo practices. It was that spirit that is important to capture.

So I went from the idea of Marco pushing against barriers to get to an elusive goal: “glass ceilings” is not appropriate – nor is the “pushing the envelope” an accurate idea.

I like the idea of a “Berlin Wall”-type thing which put Marco pounding a big wall with a sledge hammer. The upper left sketch is my first vision. Despite the posture of Marco’s hammer swing being fairly accurate, I though the composition a bit motionless and bland – as the hammering action is going away from the viewer.

In the bottom sketch, the action is more from left to right. I spent much less time sketching Marco’s figure in order to emphasize the body language rather than the body’s structural accuracy. My attention in this was more for positioning the arms in relation to the body without obscuring the ever-important head. The legs were treated more as an afterthought – with little to no detail.

To the left of this, I did a foot study to get the attitude of the feet correct. When hitting something like a baseball, most concentration is on the arm swing and eye focuses on the ball. This leaves the feet to do whatever. A hitter will practice stepping into the pitch so it becomes second nature – and less of a thing to be conscious of. This is what I wanted to emphasize here. Rather than a solid “feet on the ground” stance, its more uncertain and a little awkward – note the toes pointed in slightly.