Movember: Roberto Luongo of the Vancouver Canucks

It may be safe to say that Luongo is Vancouver's starting goalie this year and should be for the next few years. He is one of the most entertaining goalies in the league in not only his interviews but on his twitter account @strombone1 .  This month Luongo is sporting a special Movember mask, it is one of my favorite masks he has worn, and I think he should stick with it for a bit longer than 1 month. For those who don't know Movember occurs during the month of November, where men and women across the globe join together to raise awareness and funds for men’s health. Men grow and women support a Mo (moustache) for 30 days becoming walking, talking billboards. Movember supports world-class men’s health programs that combat prostate and testicular cancer.

Roberto Luongo

sizes

8x8 $20.00 USD 16x16 $40.00 USD

Carey Price

I've gotten a lot of positive feed back on these types of illustrations I've been producing recently, that really ramped up and you can go back and see in last years payoff match ups. the #1 request I got was Carey Price (a lot of Montreal fans out there). My initial thought to produce these and have them look uniform was to do a few for each team, featuring different jerseys. I have a list I'm working on a list of ones to do yet, so if your a fan of these send me a request and I may push it to the top of my list.

Carey Price

Frozen Rampage

Frozen Rampage is the game that has been keeping me busy most of this summer as well as the better part of a year, as it was around last November when my friend Aaron came to me with this idea and we began to mash it out. For those of you who play Miniature games, it's a take off of Blood bowl. It's a hockey Miniatures game in a fantasy world setting, where orcs, humans, elvs, dwarfs face off in their respective style hockey gear.
As an artist, endless designs were running through my head, I have been working on the look and design of the characters, logo's and brand for the game. It came to a head late this summer when we finally got the prototypes for the games produced, I know it's my own work but I was impressed with the game seeing it all assembled.
However, because it looked so impressive to us, we basically just rushed it out on the website kickstarter. We didn't foresee the parts that still needed some work. without getting it play tested much and with my time and energy focused on the artwork and Aarons on the logistics we created some rough concepts for the actual miniature prototypes which turns out, understandably, people would want to see actual quality miniatures before investing in the product. We also wanted to hype the game more and had sent it out a several game reviewers, our mistake was sending it out right when our kickstarter launched so sadly we puled the plug on our kickstarter campaign early to buff out the kinks and work on the miniatures.
The good news is for all our backers and any one just reading this can follow the progress at our website www.rustynickelminiatures.com. The reviews for the prototype games we have sent out have largely been positive and mainly suggestions in rules, but everyone was impressed how we were able to translate the game of hockey into a board game and make it fun and competitive and bloody.
 I thank everyone who has or intends to support this game, and expect it to be back up in a few months and believe with the changes and updates to the game it will take off and we will be able to do more with it, and from the comments so far, the board and most of the artwork will stay generally the same, every reviewer really liked that aspect of the game. Thank you to everyone who has or will be supporting the game, I'll be sure to post when the game is up again.

Sami Aittokllio by Riley

A few years ago Andy sent in some goalie sketches by his 11 year old son Riley, you can see them here. Now Riley is 14 and is still an avid sketcher, he submitted an update of the progress of his son. here is Riley's sketch of Colorado Avalanche goaltender Sami Aittokllio. I can see the improvements in the artwork and look forward in getting more images of Riley's improved artwork and with more practice and determination as all the artists work that've posted through the years he's sure to have some great work in the future, it will be interesting to look back on his work at the hockey in art blog.
Thanks for submitting the update Andy, and good work Riley, keep it up and keep them coming!

Sami Aittokllio

Hockey's Masked Men from Michael Slotwinski

If you haven't already checked out Michael Slotwinski's site please do so here. He has several new paintings of goalies since my last post featuring his work. Also be sure to read his blog on the site, he has a interesting post about his paintings being on display during the NHL Alumni Dinner just before the start of the new NHL season. I've posted some of my favorite new paintings below, as someone who loves to do goalie artwork I know it can be hard to express a feeling out of the work, Michael is able to capture that exceptionally in his paintings, even when you cant even see the eyes or face, the perspective of the paintings set a nice tone. He is also a great person to follow on twitter, he will frequently post pictures during the painting process @slots_art

Roberto Luongo

Carey Price

Andy Moog

Welcome back NHL 2013-2014

Tonight we welcome back the NHL for the 2013-2014 season, on time this year. I'll have a big announcement in the next few days on the project that has been keeping me busy this past summer. So without any further adieu...the Maple Leafs take on the Canadians to open the season tonight and Jeff Nepinak submitted his Drawing of Curtis Joseph during the summer, and a perfect time to post it tonight. Joseph wore one of the most iconic masks in NHL history and has been one of my favorite goalies to watch growing up. Thanks for sending in your work Jeff, more is certainly welcome.

Curtis Joseph

R2-D2 Star Wars Goalie Mask

This one of the earlier goalie masks I painted and the 1st of many Star Wars influenced masks I have done and plan to do, I present an R2-D2 inspired goalie mask. I thought the goalie mask design lent itself as a perfect medium to transpose R2-D2 on it.

Mike Fisher by Matt Jurasewicz

Matt sent me another one of his pencil drawings of Nashville Predators forward Mike Fisher, Mike mentioned his inspiration for this drawing: Nashville didn't do too hot this (past)year but my girlfriend and I recently went to a Carrie Underwood concert, which inspired my to use her husband, Mike Fisher, as my next project!

Thanks Matt for your continued artwork that you send in and look forward to many more.

Nashville slipped a little bit last ear, my have been the loss of Ryan Suter, one the leagues best defense man and leader. I'm liking them to turn it around for this year especially when they have Pekka Rinne in net.

Mike Fisher

Get ready for the 2013-2014 Hockey season!

Hello everyone,  I apologize for my absence the past couple months and thanks to everyone for visiting the blog, and a special thanks to everyone who submitted their art work I will be posting it all soon on a regular basis again now that the season is getting ever closer. I have had a busy summer and I’ve been working on pretty big project I’m excited about and will reveal it here soon once it’s ready to go, I’m sure all hockey fans/gamers/geeks/fantasy enthusiasts would appreciate this project.  I have also gotten back into doing some goalie mask painting I’ll make a post with some pictures of some of them.

Once again thank you to all the Hockey in Art supporters!

Dominik Hasek

Hockey Art: Kelly Ackerman

I'm taking a bit of a break on my art work now, I have some other projects to work on, and just sit and soak in the Cup finals, in the mean time, Kelly sent me an e-mail linking me to her tumblr site which she has several pieces of her work posted, I was quite impressed. There are several high quality portraits posted, there are a few non hockey ones (and just a few) but I would urge you to spend some time going though her tumblr and view all her portraits, especially if you're a Penguins fan!  Kelly is a Pittsburgh-based portrait artist and graphic designer. She started drawing Penguins in 2009, would frame the originals and gift them to the players if they stopped after practice or a game, so far she's given one to Crosby, Orpik, Fleury, Rupp, Dupuis, Letang, Talbot and Cooke. I might suggest drawing a portrait of Fleury making a save and give that one to him for positive reinforcement (couldn't hurt).  And sure anyone could do that, I doubt any NHL player would refuse a gift such as that from a fan, but as a testament to her work, Talbot contacted her later and ended up using her portrait of his infamous "shhhh" pose for the artwork on t-shirts he sold through his website. I posted that piece and my favorites below be sure to check her out http://kellyackermanart.tumblr.com

 

Maxime Talbot

Evgeni Malkin

Jordan Staal

 

 

Stanley Cup Finals: Chicago Blachawks vs Boston Bruins

For the Stanley Cup finals I wanted to create something simplistic and decided to really just focus on the main characteristics that I think of when it comes to the Stanley Cup final. I took the artwork of a profile for the two captains and simplified it to represent what I believed showed the intensity and focus needed to win, I just rendered their eyes. That was still a little too simple so I added the next feature I think of, which is the playoff beard. So here is a Stanley cup Final simplistic rendering of Chicago's Jonathan Toews and Boston's Zdeno Chara.

Jonathan Toews

Zdeno Chara

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs Round 2: Chicago Blackhawks vs Detroit Redwings

My final post for round 2 is Chicago and Detroit, the series is currently 3-2 heading into game 6 in Detroit and Chicago looks to force a game 7 back home.

Here are two of my art pieces featuring a pencil sketch of Chicago's Corey Crawford and Detroit Captain Henrik Zetterberg.

Corey Crawford

Henrik Zetterberg

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs Round 2: Boston Bruins vs New York Rangers

It looks like the Bruins will ultimately take this series as they lead three game to one heading into game 5 tonight in Boston.

Here are two more of my art pieces differing from the comic style I've been doing a lot with a classic pencil sketch of Bruins goaltender Tuukka Rask and Ranger goaltender Henrik Lundqvist.

Tuukka Rask

Henrik Lundqvist

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs Round 2: Pittsburgh Penguins vs Ottawa Senators

This has been a pretty good series to watch, Ottawa is challenging the Penguins with a lot of their quick young skaters and showing us that are some weaknesses on defense for the Penguins however Vokoun has played very well in replacing Fleury, while Anderson has looked very strong for the most part almost stealing game 3.
 
Here are 2 more of my art pieces of Sidney Crosby of the Penguins and Erik Karlsson of the Senators.

Sidney Crosby

Erik Karlsson

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs Round 2: LA Kings vs San Jose Sharks

I'm starting to finish most of the Artwork for round 2 and will be posting it within the next week. So far in this round no team seems to have a strong hold to win the series...maybe the Bruins after game 2 but you never know when Lundqvist decides not to allow any more goals.

The 1st post for this round is the Kings vs. the Sharks. This series is currently 2-1 in favor of the Kings and a big reason why that is, is pictured in my art work below, Jonathan Quick. In games 2 and 3 the Sharks have found a way to get more than one goal by him (something the Blues had a hard time doing) however the offense for the Kings which was barely visible in round 1 showed up when needed in round 2 to help out Quick. It's beginning to look a lot like last years Kings.

Here are 2 more pieces of my art work of the reason the Kings are in this position, their goaltender Jonathan Quick and Playoff Gamer for the Sharks Joe Pavelski.

Jonathan Quick

Joe Pavelski

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Boston Bruins vs Toronto Maple Leafs

Tonight the Bruins have another chance to eliminate the Leafs after not doing so in a very entertaining game 5. The Bruins have a 3 games to 2 lead heading into game 6 and in the games they have won they have been rather dominating scores. It will be interesting to see what kind of game we will get tonight being another elimination game, I would say the Leafs have another good in-store to push to game 7.

This is my last post for round 1 and round 2 will start next week other games today are the Capitals trying to eliminate the Rangers or go to a game 7 (yes please) and the only game 7 in the 1st round so far is Detroit and Anaheim, interesting how all of Detroit's wins have come in OT, that tells you how close it has been and if your Anaheim...don't go to OT.

So here are two more of my pieces of Boston Bruins Nathan Horton and Toronto Maple Leafs James van Riemsdyk.

Nathan Horton

James van Riemsdyk

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs: ST. Louis Blues vs LA KINGS

This has been one of the most physical and close scoring series' of the opening round, it's a shame they met in the 1st round as I could see either of these teams winding up in the Western Conference Final. I did think the Blues were going to go far this year but it just didn't work out for them getting a match up with the Kings. Tonight they fell to them in game 6 with every game being a 1 goal game in the series.  The Kings now move on to round 2 to join the Sharks and Blackhawks as the Redwings and Ducks are headed to game 7. The west is going to be difficult to pick as the remaining teams have all looked really good and wouldn't be surprised the West handles the East quite handily in the final this year. The Kings looked like the kings of last year and Jonathan Quick looks to be a great playoff performer and one of my favorite goalies to watch play, question will be if they can score enough now to push through to the Cup.

Here are 2 more pieces I completed of the Blues T. J. Oshie and the Kings Anze Kopitar.

T. J. Oshie

Anze Kopitar

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Montreal Canadiens vs Ottawa Senators

This series has been the most entertaining playoff match up off the ice in my opinion, I might also argue the most entertaining on ice as well, just not in the meaning of good hockey games. I'm watching the Penguins & Islanders series when these teams play but I look forward to seeing the highlights and occasionally checking into the game during breaks. Senators coach Paul MacLean is now one of my favorite coaches after this series the way he talks about the Canadiens players by using number rather than names"Player 61"is just tremendous and the subsequent outrage by the Canadiens equally so, that's why the playoffs are so fun.

The actual play of the series hasn't been as entertaining from what I can tell, as Ottawa holds a 3-1 series lead heading into game 5 tonight. You could argue the Canadiens were heading into the playoffs at the wrong time, what with gave just a solid and surprising season after finishing at the bottom of the standing last year. This year they hit a rough patch a few weeks before playoffs started and Carey Price hasn't been playing well and now is injured and out for game 5, they were hoping they could turn it around to start the playoffs hasn't really worked out for them.  It has worked for the Senators however, who suffered some big injuries during the season and then getting a huge boost by getting star defenseman Erik Karlsson back right before the playoffs. Factoring the teams situations heading into the playoffs it's not really a surprise the Seanators have the lead and look to move onto round 2.

For this match up, Hockey Artist and Canadiens fan Wade submitted another one of his digital paintings of Montreal Canadiens Alex Galchenyuk you can follow him on his twitter handle @DarthAlexander9. The other is my artwork of Ottawa's goaltender Craig Anderson.

Alex Galchenyuk

Craig Anderson

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Vancouver Canucks vs San Jose Sharks

It was hard to predict this series to start, question marks abounded for both teams. First the Canucks have had a season long goalie controversy while both played pretty well through the season and the team had a solid season as a whole and winning their division and the 3rd playoff seed.

Now the sharks were one of the most surprising and hottest teams to start the season and cooled off, but rebounded to finish the season strong they also have some of the clutch playoff performers in my opinion in Antti Niemi and Joe Pavelski, and even Joe Thornton has been solid in recent playoff years despite his reputation.

So naturally the Sharks come in and take a 3-0 series lead heading into tonight's game 4 and no matter what the out come of tonight's game it seems that the sharks will take the series in large part to the above mentioned playoff performers for the sharks...oh and one of my favorite players (because he's a Buffalo fan) Logan Couture. The Canucks have let the goaltending controversy become a major distraction, the first 2 games Luongo was solid, the team just couldn't score, then they put in Cory Schneider and fell apart in game 3. Seems that the Canucks should've let their goaltending issue go and work on creating more offence that they needed to win the series.

So here are two more of my pieces I've been working on for the Playoffs the Vancouver Canucks Kevin Bieksa and the San Jose Sharks Joe Thornton.

Kevin Bieksa

Joe Thornton

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Anaheim Ducks vs Detroit Redwings

This has been a rather back and fourth series, currently Anaheim leads the series 2-1, Anaheim have been out playing Detroit more than not, with only game 2 going to OT, and that was almost a great comeback by the ducks to score a bunch of goals late and rattle Detroit and force it to overtime only to lose by a power play goal early in OT. The Ducks seem to have come back and dominated game 3 winning 4-0, let's see if they maintain momentum for game 4 or allow Detroit to tie the series. Here are 2 more of my pieces of Anaheim Ducks Teemu Selanne and Detroit Redwings Jimmy Howard.

Teemu Selanne

Jimmy Howard

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Pittsburgh Penguins vs New York Islanders

This has been a surprising series in that it hasn't been a sweep by the Penguins. While the Penguins dominated game 1 and then got Crosby back for game 2 which they lost by showing the flaws that killed them in last years playoff vs the Flyers, shaky goaltending and defense. Game 2 was so much different from game 1 which appeared to maybe be the exception to the rule as game 3 is currently heading into overtime and the Islanders were able to fight back to tie the game at 4. This is looking to be a good series to see how far the Islanders can take this. So here is a piece by Jim Link featuring Sidney Crosby and my piece featuring Evgeni Nabokov.

Sidney Crosby

Evgeni Nabokov

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Washington Capitals vs New York Rangers

As most of the playoff match ups are now underway, there are two opening tonight and one of them are the Washington Capitals hosting the New York Rangers. while the entire Western Conference is not only under way but game 2's are being played tonight. The Western match ups have all been close games and so far the 2 Eastern match ups seem to be blow outs so far. I would expect this series to be pretty even and one of the most difficult to choose a winner, both teams had similar story lines during the short season, disappointing starts yet a strong finish leading into the playoffs meaning this could be a very good series to watch for the Eastern Conference. Here are two of my pieces of Washington Capitals Alex Ovechkin and New York Rangers Captain Ryan Callahan.

Alex Ovechkin

Ryan Callahan

2013 Stanley Cup Playoffs: Chicago Blackhawks vs Minnesota Wild

Playoffs! As mentioned the NHL's Stanley Cup Playoffs start today, the most exciting time of the year, and even though my team the Sabres were out of the running weeks (some say months) ago I still try to watch every game. Until they're out of it, I will be rooting for my adopted team, the Pittsburgh Penguins to win it all. Though I haven't been watching the Western Conference a lot because I'm on the east coast (so I have an east coast bias) but Chicago seems the popular pick, I have a feeling the Blues may make a run this year after learning a lot last year in getting crushed by the kings, as long as their goaltending remains strong.

So to start off the run of playoff match up art is the Chicago Blackhawks and Minnesota Wild featuring Patrick Kane and Mike Rupp respectively.

Patrick Kane

Mike Rupp

Throw Back Thursday: Art from Tana

Today's Throw Back Thursday is some old and some not so old. I found Tana's work on Istagram, her user ID is "Taninaca", she has a few profile pencil drawings of goaltenders on her Instagram and to qualify as a Thow Back Thursday post the 1st is of former Florida Panthers and current Pittsburgh Penguin goalie Tomas Vokoun. Some of her other sketches, which are all Czech goaltenders, I've posted are Washington Capitals goalie Michal Neuvirth, and Winnipeg Jets goalie Ondrej Pavelec, my personal favorite however is her Vokoun drawing, the detail in the mask and contrast in it really comes through in that sketch, some really nice work.

Tomas Vokoun

Michal Neuvirth

Ondrej Pavelec

SportsNic's Part 4

Here are some more of Kevin's NHL themed SportsNic's from his '09 collection, be sure to click the link on the side bar for more of his SportsNic's in past posts. These are really neat designs and creative use of the teams' logo's. This post includes the Boston Bruins, Anaheim Ducks, Detroit Red wings and Dallas Stars, enjoy!