YANKEES: RETURN OF THE EMPIRE Page 2

STEP THIRTEEN: In this step, I've only gone over parts of the illustration that could use a little bit of retouching up with transparent black over parts of the white overspray left behind from a few steps back. Nothing really major here... Moving on,

STEP FOURTEEN: it's time to begin work on Times Square below in the foreground. Back to my Iwata airbrush and I begin lining up the buildings. The trickiest step here was keeping the wool jacket flat and not having it fold or lift up any. I wouldn't want the buildings to not line up vertically in the way that they should. How ugly would that be if the buildings were slanted or off centered?!

STEP FIFTEEN: As more and more buildings are sprayed in, I also took the liberty of spraying some dots or circles where I plan to glue in some rhinestones later down the line. I keep the details down to a minimum because in the end, most of this area will be covered by the stones. I've already pictured in my head where I'll want every one of the stones to go in this lower part of the illustration. Pink is seen here, but I later sprayed in some other colors to indicate which color stone would go where. Here comes the Coca-Cola bottle now.

STEP SIXTEEN: More color, detail and embellishment is taking place here.

STEP SEVENTEEN: Now, what is Times Square without taxi cabs and vehicles? Although that was the original concept, I didn't like the way that the cabs and the vehicles came out. I ended up cutting the shapes of cars from a frisket film and then airbrushed opaque white inside the shapes. The result was less than stellar, but I'm hoping the rhinestone part will cover up my flaws. Every once in awhile, a plan does not quite reach fruition. This is definitely one of those times. But I muse...

STEP EIGHTEEN: Leaving the car issue behind, I also begin spraying in details from every part of Times Square. In some places I merely repeat spraying over lines already started and filling in some open spaces as well. More color is added and I switch between these 2 steps until I feel satisfied that it's achieved the look that I was seeking.

STEP NINETEEN: The final time that I will be using opaque white and I use it all over the illustration. I give the Yankee a white outline and I also go back into the logo and touch that up. I spray some random dots and fine lines over anything white as well as some sparkles for places I have no intention of placing rhinestones in. I almost met with disaster. As I've become accustomed to doing after every illustrative airbrushing, I always spray clear coat over the entire piece, but this time, the illustration became very cloudy. I let it settle, thinking that the cloudiness would pass, but it didn't happen. So, I had to go back in with opaque black and touch up again for the second time during this piece. This would be the final time that I would be able to airbrush before applying the rhinestones. And speaking of rhinestones....

STEP TWENTY: It's that time. I'll admit that I've never rhinestoned any fabric in my life. Sure, I did some rhinestoning on a 50 Cent illustration back in 2003 when I laced his entire watch to simulate ice. I practiced first to see how I was going to go about doing this. I layed some stones in place first and then lined up approximately 2 dozen in places that I wanted them to go. I figured that the best way to go about this was going to be the glue down, rhinestone on top method. And I would have to do it pretty fast too. This Fabri-tac stuff dries within seconds. Another challenge that I faced was when I applied the glue and pulled the tube away, a fine string would extend from the point of the jacket where I had just placed my application. This was pretty annoying so I had to literally clip the glue extension from the rhinestone with my free hand. Now, imagine doing this about...oh, a few hundred times. Over and over again. Sure, not in one night, but the rhinestoning took over a week to apply, a tedious ordeal created over the course of the ALCS. We all know how that turned out right?

ADD ONS: But wait, there's more. I went online and purchased an authentic New York Yankee emblem from Ebay to have stitched on the left leather sleeve. And if you're going to go all out with the Yankees, then you've got to apply an American flag to compliment the airbrushed/rhinestone one on the back. I finished this part, but the front looked very empty and blank. So I began an intense search for a "NY" logo for the front. Look below to see the outcome...And before I go Yankee fans and haters. Always remember:

"Winning NEVER gets boring."

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