Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Finally, I'm having a contest.

So I wanted to do a cool contest post commemorating my 1 year anniversary of card blogging. Like with most things that I do I didn't really have a chance to do it right, so I didn't do it at all.
Like most of you I have a job, friends, social life and other interests outside of blogging and card collecting. Those outside forces kept me from focusing on doing the contest in the right way.

One big problem I had with hosting a contest was coming up with something original. A lot of contests on the blogs consist of making a comment, pimping the contest on the contestants blog and/or following the host's blog.

Other contest are pretty creative and ask for entrants to answer a trivia question or give their opinions of HOF ballots, etc.

I think all of those ideas are great, but I was trying to do something different. So finally I gave up and I decided to give in and make my contest a combination of all of those ideas. That's sort of original in a plagiarist sort of way, right?

The only obvious change that I made was that I wanted the contest to not just be all about me, I wanted some info on the other bloggers out there. One of the requirements of the contest is to tell me about your collecting.


So if you're game here's the rules and regulations:

1. Post a comment on this blog post stating what's your most favorite collecting memory. It could be blogging, your first online trade. A trade you completed when you were younger. Pulling your favorite player from a pack of cards for the first time or just a random memory. It seems pretty broad and that's what I like about it; it doesn't have to be about any collection or part of your collection specifically, just a specific memory you have of collecting. (Hopefully a good memory).

If you've already blogged about this, then just leave a link to your blog post in the comment section below. It doesn't have to be really detailed either.

2. Mention this contest on your blog.

Now for the good part: the prizes. It occurred to me after I won one of the prizes in Big D's contest a month ago that I could do something similar. I really like using Photoshop, but I pretty much suck at it. So I thought that instead of doing a custom card that way, I would do a custom sketch card instead. Plus, their aint' no way I'm going to be able to do as good a job as some of the bloggers out there with their cool custom cards.


I'm not a great artist, but I can do okay sometimes with likenesses.

It's actually a little selfish of me to do a contest like this as I would like the opportunity to practice my art. I can't guarantee a perfect likeness of the player/person that you want me to sketch, but I'll do my best. Doing a specific person for the winners will be sort of like a school assignment and will force me to do something or someone that I ordinarily wouldn't draw.

Like in Big D's contest I'm going to have 5 winners. I think contests with multiple winners are the best. If there weren't contests with multiple winners I would have never won anything. The only negative to having multiple winners is that maybe their is only one or two entrants. That would be a little depressing!!

So if you're interested please check it out.

I'll leave the contest open until I think they're enough entrants.

Then I'll randomize to find the five winners and then the winners can tell me what they would like sketched as a prize. They will all receive a sketch card of a player/person of their choosing as well as some random packs of current and past products. I'm not sure exactly what I'll include, but I'll try to round up some cards from their favorite team(s) as well as the custom sketch card and the packs.

Here's some examples of my drawing prowess. Not the best examples, but at least an indication of my style.

I'll start with the most recent drawing.

I wanted to do a Roberto Clemente drawing for a while now. I only have one card of his; the 1989 Pacific card shown below.



You can see how I tried a few different sketches before coming up with the final drawing. The sketch in the bottom right makes Clemente look a little bit like a hobo.


The finished product.

Here he is without the cropping. You can see a faint pencil line where I drew the border. I always draw outside the lines and then crop later. I've never tried to draw on a pre-cropped card. That will be interesting to try sometime when I'm more comfortable doing these types of cards.



The card above is an example of a Roberto gone wrong. I like it, but it ain't him. It sort of looks like what he might look like if he had a chance to age.




Here are a few studies of David Wright.

This is me trying to do a somewhat realistic portrait of him.


.. and this is me going a little more cartoony with his facial features trying to capture something that looks like him.

And finally a colorized version of him swinging a bat. Still a little off in the face, but oh well.

I'm not a heavily political guy, but I like to draw people in the public eye from time to time.




I thought that Glenn Beck would be easier to draw what with his over the top weirdness. I had to try and do a somewhat subdued drawing of him just to get the shape of his face right. It's still a work in progress.

I think the drawing above sort of captures his features a little bit better, but still not where I want it.
Larry King.


This is supposed to be Bill Murray. Seems like an easy guy to draw, but I could never get it quite right.



This is the only card that I've done so far in watercolor. I need to do more of these. I like the look, but it takes a little more effort. I took this from the scene in Shaun of the Dead where all the zombies were attacking Shaun in front of the Winchester bar. I really regret not drawing the zombie hands in the foreground attacking him.




Some random Office workers. I don't know where my Jim sketch ran off to, but here are some of the cast from the show. I'm not sure why Meredith is in color, I guess I was trying to figure out her hair color?

Alright, so their you go. Don't laugh too hard at my crappy artwork.

13 comments:

Captain Canuck said...

awesome prizes!

if you don't mind, I'll enter by linking a story I wrote almost two years ago....

http://waxaholic.blogspot.com/2008/11/card-that-started-it-all.html

that's #1 for me...

Jeremy said...

That's a great story. Thanks for entering.

night owl said...

I'm linking, too, as it's the first thing I thought of when I was reading your instructions:

http://nightowlcards.blogspot.com/2009/09/if-card-bloggers-existed-in-1977-and.html

Jeremy said...

I remember that post well Night Owl. It's a pretty good analogy comparing bloggers to the kids you grew up with. I didn't trade much, so this blog is my playground for trading.

Play at the Plate said...

There are a lot of great memories, but the best ones now involve my son. This is the best so far.

http://playattheplatedude.blogspot.com/2009/11/unexpected-generosity.html

Jeremy said...

That's a great story Brian. The sad thing is that I remember reading these posts by you and Night Owl, but I didn't comment then. I need to do better at commenting when I read something I like. Thanks for sharing.

BA Benny said...

I can't say it's my favorite due to the circumstance but this this memory is very special in it's own way. I used to be active on a trade site and these cards are from a trade I made over there. I was lucky enough to have some auto cards this trader was interested in so he offered me some real nice NY Mets in return. There was a bunch of great cards including an 08 UD Heroes Billy Wagner GU Auto #'d 4/5 was sweet, but it was the 08 UD Heroes John Maine GU road jersey #'d 1/25 with a piece of number that made it a 4 color GU jersey that really made this trade superb. What put it over the top was the day they arrived. They happened to show up in my mailbox just a few hours after I was told about my Mom's passing. Even though she was ill for a while it is never easy to hear that Mom is gone. The arrival of those cards was a bright spot on an otherwise dark day and I will always hold them in a little higher reverence for that reason. Ironicly that trader was Mojo (Jay) of Mojo and Beardy fame. It was also my introduction to Blogoland and not too long after that I became active in blog reading, posting comments, and soon after that I started my own blog.
There's my little story.


Here's a plug for the contest http://babennysbaseballcardbuffet.blogspot.com/2010/08/contest-and-i-need-one-more-card-trader.html

Jeremy said...

Wow, that's touching. I'm sorry to hear about your mom, Mike. I can see what you mean about the package brightening up your day for a while. Thanks again for posting up the contest on your blog and welcome to blogoland!

Anonymous said...

Wow, Jeremey! Great contest! And a chance to own a 1/1 personalized baseball card??? How cool is that?

So my favorite card collecting memory to date is the first time I received a TTM autographed baseball card. I bought a '69 Topps Ray Washburn on eBay for $1 along with some other cards, and someone told me Ray signed TTM. So I got his address and mailed off the card. Low and behold a few weeks later, I open my mailbox and there before my child-like eyes was an envelope with my own hand-writing on it. It was the SASE that I included so Ray could mail the card back to me.

I'm now a full grown man, but the feeling I had when I saw that SASE compares with the morning of Christmas when I was 10 years old and my father got my brother and me a go-kart which we quickly took out in the snow to test drive. (If you've never driven a go-kart in the snow you haven't lived.) Good times!

Anonymous said...

Oh!!! and by the way...here's a link to the contest post I made:

http://way-off-base.blogspot.com/2010/08/contest-link.html

Jeremy said...

That's cool. I haven't done the TTM thing yet. I can imagine it would be pretty cool to get that package in the mail.

flywheels said...

I ran across your blog and contest via BA Benny's blog. Cool idea for the contest & prizes. I'll link you up on my blog and on the sidebar list.

As for a favorite memory? Growing up my dad had a thing we called a Father/Son trip each year after school would let out for the summer. My brother and I would rotate and each year our dad would take us where ever we wanted to go (within reason). I always like historical stuff so we'd go see the aircraft carrier docked in Charleston, SC as well as Fort Sumter there or something related. During the road trip to our destination I'd always hit up the gas stations looking for baseball cards. When we could find some packs my dad would pick up a few for me and we'd open them up on the road. I'd read off the player's name and he would tell me a bit about the player or the team or the history behind the team. He would even help me collate the cards and put them in pages once we got home. My dad was never big on hobbies or collecting things, but for whatever reason he always embraced baseball cards. He past away to cancer in 1997 so in a way baseball cards will always remind me of him.

Daniel Wilson said...

Spring Training 2004 is my favorite collecting moment. I got autographs from Alex Rodriguez, Ichiro, George Brett, Nolan Ryan, Juan Gonzalez, Paul Molitor, Mark Texiera, Orel Hershiser, Jay Buhner, and Luis Gonzalez, among others. I got a couple of broken bats from players, and a young prospect on the Mariners gave me his batting gloves and signed them. He turned out to be Adam Jones. I spent a lot of time at different ballparks that spring and loved it!

Here is the link for the contest on my blog: http://betterthanbeckett.blogspot.com/2010/08/contest-over-at-no-ones-going-to-read.html

Thanks for offering such a cool prize!