Sketch O’The Day

A quick figure study out of an old copy of Sports Illustrated

For a while there I was getting a lot of the sports related artwork in MAD, and I did a lot of sports art for various other clients like the Minnesota Twins, the San Fransisco Giants and a few others. I haven’t done much of that lately.

Personally I think drawing athletes in action is better done from memory than from photo reference. At the very least you have to simplify the figure and boil down the action to more archtypical poses. Fast shutter pictures capture weird folds and awkward moments in movement. Our eyes see things differently and our brains process the visuals as approximations. Jack Davis was always the master of the cartoon athlete in motion.