LA Times: The 2014 season will be BIG!

Here is another rundown of a  recent LA Times cover. This was a full-page cover to a section about California baseball, and much of the writing had to do with how much money was spent to build huge teams of the biggest names in the sport. Of course, that would lead one to assume that baseball will be a hot topic and a great source of entertainment for southern Cali folks in 2014. The section seemed to be pushing more towards the "awesome entertainment" aspect and not so much the finances involved, so I sketched to echo that sentiment.

(Click all images to view larger)

Because this was a pretty big project (about 11x17), I added some "mood images" to my sketches in order to give the folks at the paper a closer idea of how I would approach the images:

 #1: "Big name" players coming into the LA/Anaheim area via the ocean (I was looking forward to drawing the little detailed beach scene at their feet and possibly the title in the sand).

#2: The (baseball) stars aligning for a hit baseball season. Not only would it have been a player as the constellation, but I would have made the stars li'l tiny baseballs. The building along the bottom is a major LA icon, the Observatory at Griffith Park. This one was ALMOST selected for final.

#3: Baseball as the sun over LA. This one is very similar to a pitching image I did a while back for Major League Baseball; I wasn't crazy about re-drawing a similar image, but I felt it was a good fit for the article. I'm starting to realize how many hand-images I have in my portfolio; I may take a break from any hand-based concepts for a while...

After a lot of debate, the paper decided to go with #3 with a landscape revision that would include the Hollywood sign and Anaheim's Matterhorn icon in order to allude to both city's teams.

Here is the final art; the AD requested some palm trees and banners to nail home the location/teams. In a previous version, that area had been filled with John Woo-esque flying seagulls (which I loved), but they had to go to make room for the other elements. My buddy in LA said the image looked great as a full-page in the paper, and I was thrilled to think about the possibility of the Kardashians seeing my work (Pshhh, they don't read the paper. But I can dream).

Thanks to Derek for a great assignment, and thanks to you for reading!

Enjoy the Day,

Chris