Client: AKQA Shanghai for Nike
Executive Creative Director: Eric Cruz
Project: Portrait Illustration of Cristiano Ronaldo used in film
When I was first approached to work on this project, I was a bit hesitant because I hadn't done anything similar before. And it sort of gave me of an impostor syndrome because I wasn't sure I could pull it off.
The brief was to create a portrait illustration of the great Cristiano Ronaldo but using only football marks dipped in black paint. My initial thinking was to actually physically create the portrait on real walls. But the timeline involved having to work on it over a 2 to 3 week period.
So the solution had to be a digital one. The main challenge was to create the marks to 'paint' Ronaldo's portrait. I sourced a couple of Nike footballs used in the film and went to work.
It involved dipping the balls in black paint and bouncing the ball off of pieces of paper, so I could scan them back for digital work. I created hundreds of these. These were some of the marks I liked to create the Cristiano portrait.
We then iterated on various frames to build out the portrait. That whole process was done over a 2-week period with approvals going through Nike in China and Portland.
