This is a project I made to honor one of the greatest to ever play the game of basketball, LeBron James. Even though the Lakers didn't make the playoffs, he played with everything he had and I respect that about him as an athlete. And because of his hard work and determination I was motivated to create this piece.

For this piece I wanted to go for a slightly simplistic style along with a cartoonish look with hard edges and curves. I did not include his tattoos because of the style I was going for. As you will see, I went with solid colors for everything, including the shadows and highlights (gradient was used only for the head/hair in the area that transitions from light to dark).

Below are the reference materials I used to get the look I wanted.

With a little Photoshop, I modeled the crown on his head and got a rough sketch. Then traced the sketch in Illustrator to get the outline.

Using Photoshop again, I recreated the background using a simple soft brush and then placed the figure on there.

Then I added a light faded filter to give it a photographic look and there you have it!