Football Helmet Concepts

[bravosixninerdelta]

Here are links to a handful of helmet boards I completed back in the winter, mainly as exercises to develop my painting technique. Most of the designs are simple color variations, since my focus was on painting, not on design. These use my fourth generation helmet template, which is soon to be retired. My new gen five temp has better realism, but is still in progress.

Click on the thumbs to see the full-sized versions.

Baltimore Ravens

Calgary Stampeders

Detroit Lions

Houston Oilers

Kansas City Chiefs

Montreal Alouettes

New England Patriots

Philadelphia Eagles

San Diego Chargers

St. Louis Rams

Tennessee Volunteers

Washington Redskins

Wisconsin Badgers

[Krona]

I think youre execution is fantastic, although i'd like to see a more traditional helmet style. any chance you'd share you're technique on metallic flake? it looks great.

[Erik121]

Vols with a orange helmet with black facemask. Totally amazing. I totally love it.

[gingerbreadmann]

Yeah, I agree that your execution is outstanding but the template looks like it's for a team of mutant robots. Nice work, but keep working on the next generation of your template so it looks as realistic as possible which allows for the best critique possible. By all means though, keep painting.

grubstreet, the technique I use for metal flake is usually scattered noise, though I'm not sure exactly how that is reproduced in vector.

[EJ_Barlik]

Great Stuff. I hope you continue with the rest of the teams in the NFL. You have a very creative mind....

[bravosixninerdelta]

Thanks everyone

@ grubstreet ? I'll gladly tell you what I can about my metal flake technique. I usee Photoshop 7 and Illustrator CS (I have Photoshop CS3 but my machine doesn't have the grunt to run it until I upgrade). I paint the flake in Photoshop by first laying down a gradient blend (usually with two or three color stops), then using the noise and film grain filters. I don't have any preset values for the filters, I just play with the particle size and the color settings until I am happy. I also enhance the contrast and do some spot painting of highlight and shadow, as the reflections need to be harsher and the shadows deeper with flake than with a gloss finish. I paint these touch-ups with soft brushes, and sometimes with particulate brushes.

@ Erik121 ? I'm glad you love the orange Vols helmet! Actually, I first saw that in the early 1990's when Tennessee produced some t-shirts with a nice airburshed rendering of that orange helmet design. My best friend had one and I was always trying to steal it from him! If I can find a pic of that shirt or one like it I will post it.

@ gingerbreadmann ? Thank you for the encouragement. Unfortunately, the new template is an update of this design, the "robot" helmet, just because I love all the new "techy" helmet designs coming out nowadays. I am actually working on a library of ten new templates that will range from 1950's MacGregor-looking stuff, through the 1970's RK double bar look, up to the "Transformers"-type stuff of today, so I can do concepts and reproductions that will have the look of a certain decade or era.

@ edge1 ? Thanks for the kind words! I'm glad you enjoyed seeing my doodles

[jOkeR]

I think they all look awesome. I really like the Orange Tennessee Helmet. But I think your logos are just alittle bit too big, if you made them a tad smaller I think it would look even better.

[Keith75]

Those are cool concepts. I would like to see more of them.

[neo_prankster]

I really liked the second design for San Diego.

[JJSCOTT]

very cool... some great ideas in there... but i gotta say... NO WAY on the winged helmet design for Wisconsin! especially as a Wolverines fan!

[NEW.ERA]

These are really great

i love the Stampeder one in black, but you should make an Alouette one with the bird