Welcome to the first ever creative mash-up session with Tony.psd on Golden State of Mind! Each week I'm going to tackle quick illustration sessions drawing your favorite Golden State Warriors Players, Warrior Girls, Thunder and just about everyone in the organization including you... the fans! (Shoot I'll even draw the Churro's guy peddling up and down the aisles!) For this first session, I will be sharing my techniques and provide you quick tips on how I draw my pieces. It's no secret ya'll... it's just a lot of practice and patience that gets the job done.

Think of it as a reference on how I do... what I do. I am very grateful that my work is appreciated on GSoM, now it's time to go in depth and show you how it's done- in 4 easy steps! You ever catch that Painter Bob Ross on PBS? Ya' know, the guy with the beard and thick afro who paints a pretty flower... and 5 minutes later... he draws the whole garden?!? Well that's how we're gonna do it on Golden State of Mind!

This week's artistic model will be none other than Monta Ellis! (I wanted to draw Baron, but I think I'll start fresh with someone new) From start to finish, I set aside 4-5 steps for myself when I draw something on Adobe Illustrator. Rather than trying to do so many things at once, I set aside the easiest stuff first, than work my way down to trickier techniques. I try not to spend more than 3-4 hours for one drawing because I am always pressed for time. The more you practice, the quicker things get. Lets start with step 1...

1) Outlining Monta Ellis
Set it off by outlining all of Monta's body. Nothing fancy. Just outline his body so you can later specify where you wanna fill color to the image. This step should take you about 20-30 minutes. I like using it as a guide on where to dab the colors later on. I don't wanna get too technical on Adobe Illustrator's tools, it's too... um, technical... but you get the idea, with these outlines, you don't wanna go over the edge!

Ahhh... the easy part of Drawing Monta Ellis...

2) Shading Monta Ellis
I'm not a big fan of gradients, I like solid colors and overlapping other similar colors to create simple shadows and lighting on my drawings. A lot of the gray's you see here are mixtures of the color black and its opacity toned down to 20-30% for that grayish look (especially on his jersey). If you look at his skin features, though they look like the gray tones on the jersey. They're solid blacks with the transparency option turned down to 20-30% as well. By doing this, you keep the regular brown skin tone and the transparency acts as a shadow overlapping the brown tone. Shading is my favorite part, it add's depth and tone to the piece.

Put some life into it... Give Monta gray tones!

3) Coloring Monta Ellis
I like to think of it as the easy part... or the "I'm almost done part!" Let me hide the shading parts and give you an idea on how colors work. I don't go overboard on the colors, I like solids with the shading overlapping the color schemes. There's probably 6 colors tops. With the outlines created on step 1, I dab the color needed on each shape. That's what I like to think Illustrator is all about- a bunch of shapes and colors creating familiar objects. Color is color, it can be the fun part to every drawing!

Aww Yeah! Funner than a coloring book!

4) The Finishing Touches on Monta Ellis
When all is said and done, the outlines, the shading and colors all come together. I've created a terrific looking Monta Ellis, or at least my attempt in illustrating him! Go back and always revisit the drawing to see if you missed anything- like adding  more shading on his ear... adding a tongue... a headband? It's almost like proofreading. Zoom out and view the piece at 100%, then share it with everyone on Golden State of Mind!

You're done! Now post it on GSoM!

5) Add icing to the cake...
Give it some extra flare and add a background- again, I try not to look for stuff that can take away from Monta, so on Photoshop, I grab myself a backdrop (preferably the original pic) and make it a grayscale image... so Monta can stand out more. If you want, later on you can redraw the background! Now you're playing with power!

Oh heck, lets give it a background! Yeah! That one!

I hope you enjoyed my first offering to Golden State of Mind.  I have a lot of plans and idea's for GSoM (as long as the fellas are okay with it of course!) and I thank each and everyone of you for your continued support! You guys truly are the NBA's 1# fans! Be on the look out next week... I got something really fun on the creative tip!

Even Bob Ross is down with Golden State of Mind!

Poll

Who would you like to see Illustrated next?

8%

e) Don Nelson

32 votes

5%

f) Adonal Foyle

21 votes

37%

g) A Warrior Girl

148 votes

4%

h) Thunder

19 votes

5%

i) Chris Mullin

22 votes

9%

d) Andris Biendrins

38 votes

9%

c) Stephen Jackson

38 votes

1%

b) Al Harrington

6 votes

16%

a) Baron Davis

66 votes

390 votes | Poll has closed