Had a cool project over the holidays, which was to turn 4 athletes into superheroes including a jam cover page for ESPN RISE Magazine! This hit the stands in Febuary, so if you’ve got the chance you should definitely cop one! They were supercool to work with as they gave me all the creative freedom in the world to work with, only restriction was to keep the color ways similar to their highschool uniforms. I was like,”Go to town? Um…ALRIGHT!” You can even catch the player’s reactions to being, “powered up” into superheroes / videogame characters at ESPN RISE.COM!

Here are some pictures of the magazine from my facebook album:

PUBLISHED COPY OF EPSN RISE MAGAZINE

ESPN RISE MAGAZINE COVER - MICHAEL GILCHRIST

Here’s the cover to this month’s ESPN RISE Magazine! Had a lot of fun drawing these series of illustrations as they gave me a whole bunch of creative freedom to do whatever I wanted with these athletes! 

This you see here is Michael Gilchrist, top highschool prospect out of St. Patrick, NJ. I’m a huge fan of Basketball so this was doubly sweet. What kinda cool things to add to him? Pssh, of course extend-able limbs and badass kicks, what else?!

If you’ve got this in hand, HIGH FIVE!

Thank you once again to Fabian “Monk” Schlaga for the crazy digital collab, the man is on FIRE!

ESPN RISE MAGAZINE - NICK VENA

Here’s the second character for this month’s ESPN RISE Magazine – NICK “Zee Cannon” VENA (MR. ATLAS) 
Apparently this highschool phenom from Morristown has been breaking records in shotput in all freshman, sophomore and senior years. Now he has only himself to compare to! So what did I decide to do? Gave him robotic arms and an ammo belt! Imagine if those shotputs were grenades?? Lol!

If you’ve got this in hand, HIGH FIVE! *two times*

Thank you once again to Fabian “Monk” Schlaga for the crazy digital collab, the man is SIZZLIN’!

ESPN RISE MAGAZINE - DANIEL NORRIS

Here’s the third character for this month’s ESPN RISE Magazine – Daniel Norris! This guy’s arm will throw laser beams down any batter’s throat! This was hugely inspired by TRON (and Cyclops) as it literally just hit the theaters when I was illustrating this! ESPN was totally cool with the inspiration (as they are affiliates w/ Disney) and encouraged it! My idea was that he would basically aim with his eyepiece and then launch the light-ball with extreme speed and precision. 

If you’ve got this in hand, HIGH FIVE! *three times*

Thank you once again to Fabian “Monk” Schlaga for the crazy digital collab, the man is SMOKIN”!

ESPN RISE MAGAZINE - JADEVEON CLOWNEY

Here’s the fourth and final character for this month’s ESPN RISE Magazine – Jadeveon Clowney, the consensus number one football recruit from South Carolina. Since he plays defensive end, I realized that he must tackle peeps all the time. So I fashioned his shoulder pads to mimic that of an Armored Tank. Cause well, he is one! 

If you’ve got this in hand, HIGH FIVE! *four times*

Thank you once again to Fabian “Monk” Schlaga for the crazy digital collab, the man is so MONEY!

ESPN RISE MAGAZINE - TEAM COLLAGE

Here’s the last and final cover page of all four characters/athletes in a team collage for Febuary’s ESPN RISE Magazine! THE ROBOTS MUST DIE!!!

If you would like to see how this turned out in th mag, check out the facebook pictures here:

Once again, much love to Fabian “Monk” Schlaga for hookin’ me up here, the guy is one talented mofo!