This Old Art

Rockhurst High School Mascot.

It's been a few years since I've landed a mascot design for a school. I did two other bird themed mascots for another high school in Arizona. And I also did a scorpion mascot for another high school in Arizona as well.

Unlike the past mascots which I created from scratch this mascot had a history with the school. They didn't want a completely new approach they just wanted the existing art re-created with my flair.

I call this type of project a "Creative Re-Model." The foundation and framework don't really need to be torn down it just needs to be reinforced and built upon with a better artistic structure. So I guess that makes me Norm Abram and I welcome you to my blog edition of "This Old Art."

The Creative Stages

1. A Fowl piece of mascot art. The art they provided as their existing mascot looked like a 20th generation photocopy.

2. Too adult and serious. My first rough sketch pushed it towards a more sophisticated NFL type look with the character. The client requested a younger and hipper hawk.

3. Youthful, but too aggressive. I looked at hawk photo reference and that was my problem, young hawks don't have smooth head feathers. So I re-worked the head and showed his teeth. (I know hawks don't have teeth) The client thought it was the right age now just too aggressive.

4. Youthful, confident and strong. The client was happy and approved the art for final build.

5. Drawing out shading details. With final approval I build out my vector art. One edit I did do was to shorten his beak a bit. I then printed it out and drew in my shading detail. Using this as my guide I then built it in vector form.

6. New high school mascot art. Final art delivered to agency.

Come to think about it I'd love to re-design my old high schools mascot art. We were the "Timberline Trail Blazers" and our mascot was a poorly rendered lumberjack. I think I need to make a cold call this week.