Page 33 - Sports Illustrated KIDS Magazine (January - February 2020)
P. 33
“Sports illustration should
be about extremes. It should
be about capturing that Disney animator Glen
moment where a player is Keane to hand-draw his
exerting themselves to the
very limit of their abilities.” Oscar-winning animated
Find reference photos that short film Dear Basketball.
capture wild athletic feats,
like this bicycle kick.
“I’ll put little dirt
specks flying off
people, or their hair
flying, so that even
without motion lines,
you can see that
something is moving.”
The dirt here shows
the path of her kick.
“I’m an extremely visual and
creative thinker,” Kobe says.
“So I constantly draw things
If you really want out just to make sense of
to push your poses, them. I always have different
learn the shapes that
make up the human ideas pouring out of my brain,
body. “Go back to so I like to get them down on
basic forms—spheres, paper, whether through writing
cubes, cylinders—to or drawing.”
construct the body.
You can learn a lot
of anatomy from
comic books.” “The big thing is to not be
afraid to fail or make mistakes!
Every failure is an opportunity
to learn how to do something
better the next time. The trick
is to understand that making
mistakes means you’re
learning and training yourself
for improvement. It’s that
process that makes every
journey so beautiful.”
“There were times when I’d
with draw something just to give
completely ripping off a photo If you submit a tracing Here’s the same pose but Glen an idea of what my
whenever you feel like to the Art Gallery, we can without the use of tracing point of view was for a certain
drawing. When you’re not always tell. (We’re on to paper. See how much memory because we both
you, kids!) See how stiff stronger this feels? The really thought it was important
simply tracing, it’s called this pose looks? “The lines are confident, like
“using reference.” But Sean, problem is,” says Tiffany, whoever drew them knew to get perspective right. But my
illustrator of our “What’s the “something can look O.K. as what they were doing. drawing skills are probably at a
a photo, but all of a sudden “But something is missing. two out of 10! One day I was
Call?” scenarios (page 48),
it looks really weird as a It’s dynamic, but it’s just trying to draw the folding chairs
warns, “It’s not as simple as drawing. When you trace, not dynamic enough.” on the court. Glen looked at
taking a reference photo and you’re not putting you into Don’t settle here. Use me and said, ‘What are those?’
it. You’re just getting the your imagination to
drawing exactly what you see. From that point on, I left the
surface. When you draw, push the pose, like in
You need to push it.” even if it’s bad, it’s you.” the top example. real work to the experts.”
ROB NELSON/THE LIFE IMAGES COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES (ROCKWELL); GETTY IMAGES (KICK); COURTESY OF GLEN KEANE PRODUCTIONS
SIKIDS.COM / 31
