Ten Years of the Robbman...A Decade at the CCSLC

[robbman21]

Today marks the tenth anniversary that I joined the boards here at the CCSLC. I'd actually been a daily viewer/reader for a few months prior but had yet to post, as my membership was tied to this site's old home over on the boards at Fanhome.com, as were most of the members who joined here in the site's early days. Actually, I should correctly say that it wasn't yet a site at all, but rather just message boards. The website of sportslogos.net would come later. As I was joining this board, I had been bed-ridden for exactly a month, having been smashed head-on in a car accident by a car who was running from police after a bust on a crystal meth lab. He suffered a broken foot and was in and out of the E.R. in a few hours. I spent 3 days in I.C.U. and another 8 weeks at home recovering from a trip through my truck's windshield. During that time I obviously had plenty of time to lay around and play on the computer, and so I made the move from the dying Fanhome over to this site on March 4th, 2004. While I was already adept at illustrator I'd never really applied it outside of work applications (designing signs and billboards), so my first concepts here were actually done in MS Paint until I learned the in and outs of every illustrator tool that was NOT the text feature.

I was blown away by some of the talent here and I knew I wanted to be a part of it, from the brilliance of Nitroseed, to the bizarre I-cant-look-away stylings of Discrimihater, to the MS Paint mastery of Steve-O and Against All Odds (later known as AAO), this board was where a sports fanatic artist like myself needed to be. Through 10 years I've amazing artists come along and shine and later pass the mantle down to others...guys like Nitroseed, AAO, PCGD, Buc, AndrewHarrington, Davidson...even myself for a short time, so it's amazing and fills me with joy to see guys like Conrad and ren69 reaping the praise currently. I've seen knotheads like Mojoto and JamesCraven mouth their way right out of here, and I've seen BringBackTheVet live up to the widely held belief that Philly sports fans are probably the most knowledgeable on the planet. Most importantly I've enjoyed the brethren and camaraderie that this fraternity has provided. It helped me recover from a life-threatening car wreck, and has helped me become a better artist both independently and commercially.

Over the next few days I'm going to post a retrospective of my concepts through the years, from 2004 to 2014, not that any of them are any good, but most of them have been sitting locked away in photobucket for many years and just want to come out for some air again. With that said as I've said many times here...enjoy!

This was my first concept here, originally done in paint and originally posted on the old Fanhomes board to no response (because the board was dead at this point). The Atlanta Falcons announced in training camp before the 2002 season that they would be changing things up for 2003, and this was my concept. I originally drew this concept in my sketchpad, before later doing a full "technical" rendering in full color on paper much like this one here, and also drawing Michael Vick in the uniform in action. Not knowing how pro sports teams actually go about selecting new logos and uniforms, I actually packaged this all up and sent it to the Falcons front office, and as you can imagine I never heard a response. A guy named James Craven, who would soon become a banned member here and never made concepts, posted a thread in the concepts forum asking for people to submit their concepts for the Falcons, Titans, Bills, and Bengals, which were the last 4 uniform hauls in the NFL at that time. Since I had this one sitting around I pulled it out here, and thus began my concept posting here on the CCSLC. A quick note: The custom font shown here is one that I have used many times in concepts since, and ironically is very, very similar to the current Arkansas Razorbacks font, though it pre-dates it by around 10 1/2 years.

It should also be noted that I've re-used this jersey/pants template on several concepts as well.

[wisconsinrules]

Congrats on 10 years!

[robbman21]

Right about the time my Falcons concept showed up here, I went ahead and made concepts for the other teams that he requested: The Bills, Titans, and Bengals. Jamescraven wanted to see a Bengals concept done his way, and so based on his changes I made and posted one of those as well. For all of these I'd hoped to come back later on and make vectored versions, and that's still in the plans for one day.

[macalesterscots]

I wonder how many tears your JP Losman jersey will elicit from various Bills fans

[robbman21]

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[tBBP]

Dang, folk--don't make me go and post a retrospective!

Real talk, though...congrats on ten years AND on making it through that horrific accident. You been around here longer than I have...glad to say I know you. (Somewhat. )

[robbman21]

Dang, folk--don't make me go and post a retrospective!

Real talk, though...congrats on ten years AND on making it through that horrific accident. You been around here longer than I have...glad to say I know you. (Somewhat. )

Thanks so much man! Always great to hear from you and hope all is well your way. It's great to see comments from someone I've respected for so long but hadn't heard from in a while...keep doing ya thing man!

(And an inside note: Buc is maybe one of only 2 people who knew something was brewing before the Alternate Universe NFL megathread debuted...we actually communicated quite a bit back-and-forth over our action templates before the series debuted...and now you know!)

[vicfurth]

Bumping this past other frap like the chess league and veto league.

[tBBP]

Dang, folk--don't make me go and post a retrospective!

Real talk, though...congrats on ten years AND on making it through that horrific accident. You been around here longer than I have...glad to say I know you. (Somewhat. )

Thanks so much man! Always great to hear from you and hope all is well your way. It's great to see comments from someone I've respected for so long but hadn't heard from in a while...keep doing ya thing man!

(And an inside note: Buc is maybe one of only 2 people who knew something was brewing before the Alternate Universe NFL megathread debuted...we actually communicated quite a bit back-and-forth over our action templates before the series debuted...and now you know!)

I remember all that! Man you're bringing up all kinds of fond memories now. I remember when I first made the first batch of those...I just wanted something more realistic on which to show my uniform concepts (I like to think I was an innovator that way around these parts )--but then my man here took those and went to a whole 'notha level with them!

I haven't looked at any of those old templates--or, for that matter, any of the old concepts I made with them--but between this and Doug's Concept Hall of Fame thread now (hmm...wonder if a certain fictional football league based on liveries might merit consideration???), I may have to go cruising down memory lane and go dig some of that stuff up.

Oh and...the respect is most definitely mutual, Robb.

[robbman21]

My first ever entire thread of concepts was to post the teams of the RFL from 1994. What was the RFL?? Well, it began life in 1994, my senior year of high school. There was a computer SIM football game known as Front Page Sports, it had real NFL players but you could create your own players and teams and leagues. Back in those days not everybody had a computer, in fact hardly anyone did, and those that did rarely had a computer powerful enough to run any kind of detailed game, even just a SIM game that only spits out stats and play-by-play. Fortunately the girl I took to my SR prom DID have one of those computers, so I bought the game and set it up on her PC and soon this bizarre "invisible football league"
was all the talk around school, I even had a couple of my football coaches join the league. I even did uniforms form the whole league, even though the names, colors, and a lot of the helmet logos were determined by my friends, NOT myself. Sicne 2004 was the 10th anniversary of that league, I decided to devote an thread to it's memory. Later in 2004, the RFL returned, this time as a fantasy NFL league here on the boards. It eventually evolved into the WFA where it lasted until the 2011 season. In hindsight I should have take the league back over, but we all know what they say about hindsight. I was going to go back and post the RFL again in illustrator format, and with what the teams may look like years later, but I only got a few of those finished. As you'll notice with a lot of these early concepts, I re-used ideas later for my Alternate Universe NFL. Here is a rundown of the teams: Las Vegas Gamblers, Baltimore Stallions (this was BEFORE they announced a CFL team there), Jacksonville Rockets, Charlotte Panthers (Jax and Carolina had just been announced as expansion franchises), Milwaukee Thunderdogs, Los Angeles G's, Miami Spartans, Dallas Sheriffs, San Diego Shockers, San Jose Stingrays, New England Americans, Houston Hurricanes, Chicago Bandits, Kansas City Kiss, Seattle Grunge, and my team, the Atlanta Rush.

[robbman21]

[robbman21]

My team was the Atlanta Rush, and yes named after one of my favorite bands. Here's the original in glorious GIF format as it was originally posted, and then later after I gave it the illustrator treatment.

[robbman21]

My best friend at that time was a mega KISS fan, and so like me he named his team after them. I came up with this design originally in 1991 for a Strat-O-Matic pro football SIM, and then it carried over to our early 1994 computer SIM league. Two and a half years later, the Browns started play in Baltimore as the Ravens, and I was almost blown away when I saw them take the field in what looked like real-life Kansas City KISS uniforms. KC would lose the championship game, known as the Dream Bowl.

The league champ in that SIM season was a team known as the San Jose Stingrays, with black and sea green as their colors. Here they are as they first appeared, and later with their vectored helmet that I made sometime in 2005.

[robbman21]

Contests/Challenges used to be a very prevalent thing on these boards, with at least one going on at all times and sometimes two. Shortly after I joined, a contest known as "The Logo Olympiad" was created, and I threw my hat in the ring a few times, despite the fact that I was already behind the 8-ball using Paint instead of Illustrator. Nevertheless, every one that I entered garned votes, and one just barely missed a bronze medal. The challenges represented were "Create an alternate jersey for any AHL team", and "Create a hockey crossover for any MLB's AA affiliates". For the former I chose the Houston Aeros, and for the latter I entered my homestate Arkansas Travellers. The other one shown is the one I made but decided against entering, a crossover of the Greenville Braves. I'm not for certain but I think this is the first time the Braves crossover has ever been posted here or anywhere. Perhaps I should have vectorized it first.

[Frylock]

Loving this retrospect! Glad you're still around after all this time, and that the idiots didn't run you off, forever. The original alternate universe threads were gold - the best these boards (and any of the prior incarnations) has ever seen. Many have tried to copy the idea, but few even come close. Kudos, robbman!

[Conrad.]

Love the idea of the retrospective. Thanks for the s/o in your write-up. I'm glad you've stuck around and have contributed to the great thing we've got goin here at CCSLC.

( ps: i might steal your idea and do me a retrospective next year when I hit 10 years )

[1clkgtramg]

Wow this is really cool, makes me wonder how long I've been here - at least on the site not the forums.

I love seeing the concepts that were made nearly 10 years ago; there is something about it that you just can't replicate. And I must say, these are all far better than what many are posting now. Just a quick MS paint recolouring and then post up and somehow get plenty of views. Just goes to show what some real effort on limited resources can liok like!

Anyway, you have some really cool stuff and I love that Houston Aeros jersey!

[robbman21]

When the first Logolympiad ended I went on this HUGE hockey concept spree. I gave new life to the Stars and Islanders, did an update to the Canucks old "V" uniforms, made a few state flag hockey teams for a running thread that we had going at the time, a Cowboys-to-Stars crossover concept, a Falcons-to-Thrashers concept, and a Rays-to-hockey crossover for the formerly famous "Ironchef Crossover" contest that we used to have there.

[robbman21]

The first contest that I ever overaw on these boards was the Robbman's Evolution Challenge, where I name some team's classic or well-known throwback looks that didn't last, and ask competitors to update...or evolve...the look as if the team had been wearing it the whole time, similar to the Pistons returning to their traditional red, white, and blue unis. It gave the newer, less established guys here a chance to enter a contest that they had a real chance to compete in and turned out much popular than I imagined it would be. Here's what I came up with for the NBA category, which those entered could chose to update the old Nuggets rainbows, the Warriors "City" jerseys, the Hawk's royal blue and lime green jerseys, the Jazz purple hold-overs from the New Orleans days, and the Bucks' green rainbows. Ironically, the Warriors and Jazz would return to those looks years down the road.