For my 5th sustained investigation I continued my question "What if Kobe went to college?". I expanded on my last project by showing the result of Chauncey Billups' rookie season with the Vancouver Grizzlies. "If" Kobe was to be drafted by the Celtics in the 1997 draft then the Grizzlies would have most likely drafted Billups with their first pick instead. So the by the end of the season Billups would take the Grizzlies to the Western Conference Finals and that's where I started with this project. I found an image of Billups, but had to clear the previous teams logo with content aware in order to replace it with the Grizzlies logo.I copied the sleeve design from the jerseys found on the web then warped them onto Billups' jersey to fit the curvature of the new jersey. I also had to use the black and white filter to change the color of the side stripe. Then go over lightly with a brush to cover up any darker stripes that stood out.
In this step I began to work on the background for my project. The grizzly represents the mascot of Vancouver and the mountain range to the right is a skyline view of Vancouver. I lowered the opacity of the images so they wouldn't over power the background and piece as a whole. The main background is a basketball court and did not want this part to cover up too much of that. I also felt like these two images combined would help the reader identify the team pretty easy and it adds more detail to the piece as a whole.
Continuing on the background, I applied the bear and mountain piece then found a picture of the northern lights. The northern lights fit perfectly in this situation because they are the same colors as the Grizzlies and also adds more eye catching attention to the piece. I then placed Chauncey into the piece and added an outer glow to him to separate him from the background more.
In the final steps of the project I added some trees to the right and left of Chauncey, and used them almost as vignette in the background. I really liked the addition of the trees and I feel like it adds more structure to the piece. I adjusted the glow on Chauncey to make it fade out more into the background but also have a bigger spread than before in order to make him stand out a little more. I also adjusted the vibrance and contrast of the the jersey to make it pop out more to the viewer's eye. To top it off I added the Western Conference Finals logo to represent their successful season, and the team logo for identification.
