Alamo City Roller Girls

I think this one will make a very lovely Christmas card. All it needs is a Santa hat on Medusa. By the way all the art work for the Alamo City Rollergirls was done entirely in photoshop which was a first for me. I usually do it the old fashioned way then scan and tweek the art in Photoshop. I figured this was as good a time as any to give it a go one hundred percent.



If I could do this drawing over again I'd add sound effects like "WHAMMO!","BIFF!"and "SMOOSH!". Makes you feel like you're right in the middle of the action right?

I think this one would look good on a t-shirt or maybe a on a wall clock.





This is the second piece I did for them. I was less timid about the subject matter and having a bit more fun. Green is the team color so I thought the more green ... well...the more green.



Art work minus the text for the first poster for the opening bout of the 2009 season. It's a little anemic, I know.


In 2009, an ad in the newspaper caught my attention. The Alamo City Rollergirls, an all female flat- track roller derby team in San Antonio, was looking for an artist to provide illustrations for their posters advertising the bouts for their season. As a kid I remember watching roller derby on t.v. and I remember seeing the roller derby movie" Kansas City Bombers" starring Raquel Welch, on the CBS Late Movie way back before the dominion of cable television. It looked like a fun project. So in the name of fun and sentimentality for the 70's I'd recently began feeling I decided to go for it. I sent in samples of my work to the contact and before I knew it I was discovering the rough and tumble world of roller derby.

I was provided with a season pass so I could see a live bout and sketch some ideas for the posters. I'm no expert but it looked like a very tough line of work but it was all very fun to go out and draw something new. I was feeling like things were a little stale for me art-wise and drawing the posters reminded of why I do this for a living: Because it's fun and I think I was forgetting that. When it becomes just about the check I've always felt it's time to switch gears in order to recharge the batteries.
Plus I learned that the Alamo City Rollergirls do a lot of volunteer work for local events and organizations like Girls Inc. and they are not paid to compete. They do it free. Gratis! They cover their own equipment and travel expenses when they have an out of town bout. You've got to respect that. If you get a chance check out a bout locally at the Rollercade Skate Center.