This project was for Bodog.eu NBA tip-off for the 2018 season. Canada got HUGE news that Kawhi was traded to the Toronto Raptors in July 2018. Bodog was Canada's sportsbook. Anytime we put anything out for the NBA, we featured the Toronto Raptors.
This was a fun project because we started it before Kawhi Leonard arrived in Toronto, meaning we didn't have any photos of him in Raptors uniforms yet. We knew that he would be number 2, so I had to go to work. Step one was finding a great image of Kawhi, which was the easy part. Step two was to find another Raptors player in a similar position to him. I found the DeMar DeRozen image, first cut out the jersey using the pen tool in Photoshop, then removed the number 10 and replaced it with the number 2.
The next step was to convert the DeMar DeRozen image to a smart object and bring it into the Kawhi image. I used Puppet Warp for what felt like 8 hours until I got the jersey positioned so it looked like Kawhi was wearing it. Next was the lighting on the jersey - The shadows had to be fixed to match the lighting Kawhi was in to make it look more realistic. Up next was finding shorts I could put on Kawhi. The best one I could find had another player's hand on his waist; I needed to remove that. Next was to add the NBA logo back that I had just removed because the hand was in the way.
Now that I had fabricated Kawhi into a Toronto Raptors uniform, I had to finish the banner. Bodog's brand was very dark and mysterious. The brand guidelines were VERY strict. I had to add a lot of shadow and smoke layers, then finalize it with some mood lighting, a hint of blue to tone down some of the red. This is one of my favourite Bodog sports creatives I worked on during my time at Capit Media because of the uniform challenge.
