Last year Michigan State punched Michigan in the mouth. They literally punched them in the mouth. After being called for 13 penalties (6 of them of the 15 yard variety) Michigan State Defensive Coordinator Pat Narduzzi famously said, “That’s what we try to do. Sixty minutes of unnecessary roughness. I’m just happy it didn’t get called on every snap.”

State has clearly been the more physical team of late and their boundary pushing gameplans have paid off to the tune of four straight wins in the rivalry. This wallpaper was inspired by their bold and reckless tactics. I picture the Michigan State coaching staff handing out stacks of flash cards like those used to teach sight words to kindergarteners. Yes, this is a dig at the level of intelligence required to gain acceptance to the state university. Yes, I attended a state university (not that state university) so I am licensed to dig.

This one’s for you, MGoBlog readers; specifically those of you who slo-mo crowd shots to look for internet celebrity Michigan fans like Lloyd Brady.

The 2011 Notre Dame game brought us Michigan Stadium’s first (football) night game, a crazy last-minute game-winning touchdown drive and the awesome Facepalm Guy. Don’t know about Facepalm Guy? Let’s remedy that shall we?

This week’s wallpaper is a remix of my 2010 Touchdown Jesus Says “No Good” artwork. It seems appropriate for Touchdown Jesus to assume the facepalm pose in light of three straight Notre Dame losses on late fourth quarter Michigan scores.

Update: I’ve posted new wallpapers with the correct schedule.

I didn’t expect a win against Alabama but I’d hoped for something a little less embarrassing. I needed a wallpaper palate cleanser so I disassembled last week’s wood-themed wallpaper and used the scraps to build this schedule with retro-ized opponent helmets rendered in my 3D stadium.

I hope this will get you through a couple of weeks. I’m going to disappear for awhile but will return with new artwork for one or two of the rivalry games. I have some fun things planned including that ambitious project I mentioned at the end of last season.

Recently a friend of mine (a software developer) was talking to his 11 year-old son about working on an iPad app together. My friend said to his son, “You know what skills you’re going to need to learn if we do this, don’t you?” To which his son replied, “Arts & crafts like Mr. Jeremy?” We had a good laugh about it but the truth is that I do find myself chasing arts & crafts projects as a changeup to the day-to-day work in my design & software business. So joke’s on you, 11 year-old kid, I take that as a compliment!

I’ve been working for a few years on a Michigan football-related craft project: a wooden puzzle where the laser-cut pieces are hand painted to represent each B10 team and can be arranged in the order of the current league standings. I designed the helmets to match the two-bar face mask style from my 80′s sticker books (and used by Steve Largent forever) because they are rad looking and because they will not be mistaken for a youth hockey helmet or space explorer headgear (unlike some contemporary football helmet styles). I’ll probably never finish the puzzle project so I was happy to find a use for my original helmet and field illustrations. I added the stadium and Allen screws to lend structure, depth and detail to the image.

How it was made

The artwork was created in Illustrator (vector graphics) and Cinema 4d (3D extrusions, layout) with some help from Photoshop (wood textures, blur effects, color correction).

If you read only one wallpaper explanation this year I hope it’s this one because this time I have an offering AND a request.

The Offering

In between family events and having my throwing motion critiqued by Al Borges at Chuck E. Cheese’s, I scraped together a little time during our Christmas visit to Ann Arbor to create this Sugar Bowl wallpaper. I’ve never been to Louisiana but I have been on the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ ride at Disneyland more than once so I know a little something about how a sleepy, firefly-occupied swamp is supposed to look. One of my girls is Princess Tiana-crazed at the moment so I was also inspired by the bayou color palette from Disney’s ‘The Princess and the Frog’. Conveniently, it turns out that nighttime ambiance in the Louisiana swampland adheres strictly to the athletic department’s brand guidelines – even the fireflies know that the split Block M is no longer welcome in these parts.

The Request

I have received kind comments, emails and tweets from many of you over the last two seasons. I create Michigan football-inspired artwork to satisfy a personal creative need and as a way to participate in the fan community so your enjoyment of my work is very gratifying. Some of you have asked if you can donate money to say thanks or pay royalties for hanging prints of my artwork on your walls. Beyond getting me into trouble (again) with the University’s legal representation, money exchanging hands doesn’t feel right given the spirit of my work.

So, if you’re looking for a tangible way to tell me “thanks” I have a non-monetary idea that could be really fun. For the last decade I’ve coached local youth flag football, and for the last 5 years my family and I have coached and supported the teams at Sunshine Acres Children’s Home in Mesa, Arizona. Sunshine Acres takes in children whose parents cannot or will not care for them. I think this year’s flag football team will be covered on the budget front so I have an idea that I think will have a way bigger impact on our kids than your dollars anyway. Here’s how you can help:

1. Become a virtual fan by liking the Acres Football Facebook page. The page is pretty sparse at the moment but will be updated as the season goes on. Our first game is Saturday, January 14.

2. Check the Facebook page during the season for game recaps and to post an encouraging comment or two for our players. I’d love to have a few fun comments from out-of-town fans to share with the kids each week.

During most seasons we only have a fraction of the fans that our opponents bring to the field, so we invite our friends and families to act as partisan seat fillers. Fans have a noticeable positive impact on our kids’ energy and excitement and it would be pretty cool to be able to tell our players that they have fans all over the country following them on Facebook. Last season was the first where we had enough people for a postgame arm tunnel and, after several seasons of going “feated” (the exact opposite of undefeated) both of our teams made their respective Super Bowls with our 6-8 year old team winning the big trophy for the first time. You can see that championship squad in the image on the left (yes, I am just as crazy about my Acres football team as I am about Michigan).

The teams we play against are made up of kids who (for the most part) are playing with the specific goal of developing into better football players. While we usually have a few players with strong athletic ability, many of them are raw first-time players without much experience and all of them have burdens much heavier than any child should carry. The chips, as they say, are stacked in an orientation not to our favor, but our players fight on and learn great things about themselves in the process.

Go Acres! Go Blue!

I started working on this season’s Ohio State wallpaper several months ago. The concept was more fun than anything I’ve worked on (other than the Denard Robinson Action Figures) and soon it grew into my most ambitious project to-date. Nothing even comes close with regard to the skills required to pull it off and the number of hours I’d require to finish it.

In case it’s not obvious to you already, this is not that wallpaper. Two things changed my mind about releasing it now: first, I realized that my concept had nothing to do with Ohio State and would work better as a pro-Michigan season theme; second, the memorabilia-for-tattoos scandal provided the first true opportunity to poke fun at Ohio State in nearly a decade.

As I write this explanation I’m reminded of the classic line by rock greats Tenacious D: “This is not The Greatest Song in the World, no. This is just a tribute.” Next August I’ll publish “The Greatest Wallpaper in the World” for the 2012 season to massive disappointment now that I’ve stupidly overhyped the thing to the five people who actually read these explanations. For now, I hope you’ll enjoy this artwork inspired by Ohio State’s fall (and Fall).

How it was made

The Riddell Revo Speed helmets were illustrated in Illustrator (they really nailed the naming of that product) and then superimposed on the forearm photograph in Photoshop. I used a dash of Gaussian blur, a mix of blending modes and a smidge of smudge tool action to make the color boundaries look more tattoo-ish. If you look closely you can see a little red around the edges of the tattoo that gives the skin the “I was at one time in the past punctured over and over by needles” look. I toyed with a much more elaborate tattoo that used a blackletter font (and went so far as to design an ambigram for the word “game”) but in the end I decided on simplicity; I used a type treatment consistent with this season’s Notre Dame and Michigan State wallpapers.

Michigan State will be wearing Nike Pro Combat uniforms for their game against Michigan this weekend. I actually think the uniforms look great and I’m probably not as offended as I should be about Nike’s use of military words and pictures to market to teenage athletes.

Most Nike Pro Combat uniforms pay homage to great teams from the past, echo traditional uniform elements or employ locale-specific themes; I like to think that a total lack of options required Michigan State to go all the way back through their history to ancient Sparta for design elements worth repeating.

I laughed when I read the original press release in September as I imagined how the uniform would look if they really wanted to dress up their football team like Spartans. Nike could use dye sublimation to print 300-esque physiques on the jersey and pants and add blood spatter numbers and branding to reinforce the whole “Prepare for Combat” message. Nike isn’t afraid of introducing new technology in their uniforms, so why not a partnership with Vibram to combine the natural feel of FiveFingers with the traction of Vapor cleats?

Here’s what Nike’s official press release would say about my version of Michigan State’s Spartan throwback uniform:

Like the ferocious Spartan warriors of ancient Greece, the Michigan State University football team views every game as a battle of attrition, requiring the right equipment, body oil and attitude to die to the last man. Accordingly, the Spartans have been chosen to wear the innovative Nike Pro Combat system of dress-up for the 2011 season. When the gates lift for their battle against archrival Michigan on Oct. 15, the Spartans will sport a design with dye-sublimated physiques printed from full body scans to perfectly match each player’s skin and muscle tone. Bronze helmets honor the heroic armor of their historic namesake and an intimidating detachable plume will be worn during pregame warmups. Realistic skin effects are visible throughout the uniform, adding the authentic skimpy durability synonymous with the Spartan name.

The uniform’s overall innovation starts with the skin tight baselayer, as strategically placed seams, pads and cooling zones help minimize chafing and optimize protective coverage. It features customizable protection, incorporating a thin, incredibly strong carbon fiber plate textured and painted to look like genuine leather. This symbolically mirrors that of the Spartan body armor, which consisted of leather briefs and sash with a small amount of padding on the shield arm shoulder.

An exclusive partnership with Vibram brings natural running technology to the gridiron for the very first time. Like their ancient counterparts, these Spartans will battle barefoot, or as close to it as NCAA rules allow. For the first time, football players are able to experience the sensation and freedom of barefoot running with the protection and sure-footed grip of Nike’s new Talon cleat technology.

Echoing the cry of King Leonidas, the back of the collar is inscribed with the words “Molon Labe,” the Spartans’ defiant challenge to the competition (and to fans clamoring for officially licensed gear) to “come and get them!” Flayed, blood-spattered numbers and branding compete the traditional Spartan post-combat look. Armed with intensity and determination, and realistic leather accessories, MSU will fight on the battlefield until the last team is standing.

How it was made

I needed a solid white uniform to pull this off and was lucky to find a decent image from a previous version of LSU’s Pro Combat uniform. As you can see in the video, I painted over the existing numbers and logos and then superimposed the muscles and other effects. If you’re up for several minutes of uncomfortable closeups with bare-chested warriors being manipulated digitally then this making-of video is for you.

Like many of you I couldn’t sleep after the crazy comeback win against Notre Dame on Saturday night. I had to do something with all that excess energy so here’s your season schedule wallpaper.

Like last year’s Heisman Candidate Edition, the Night Game Victors Edition Denard Robinson Action Figure project was an audible. I wasn’t planning to create another wallpaper until the Michigan State game (and definitely was NOT going to revisit the action figure since it almost killed me last time) but with the last minute heroics and surprisingly-great-looking-on-the-team-as-apposed-to-at-M-Den legacy uniforms it didn’t feel like I had a choice. Seconds after the game ended I raised an eyebrow at my wife and she said, “I figured. Go ahead, I’m heading to bed.”

My daughter offered some enthusiastic support as I was wrapping this up on Sunday (she was drawing pictures of Denard at her little desk next to mine) and my wife helped with choices for some of the details like the small parts warning and edition number.

How it was made

I started with my original Denard Robinson action figure and modified it (in Photoshop) to match the Adidas legacy uniforms. The original was based on a Tom Brady action figure and got me into a funny legal situation with some lawyers who thought I was manufacturing them. I wasn’t and I don’t intend to despite the protestations of my children. “Kids, that would be illegal and besides, our home-based factory is not yet fully operational.”

I screen captured the action figure modifications and box creation but it turns out that my usually dependable software has an obscure bug that cost me 75% of what I had recorded. At some time in the future (or in the past if I can get the DeLorean running) I will go back and record the layer build for both versions of the action figure. It won’t be as good as seeing the whole process but it will be better than nothing.

Go Blue.

This disclaimer works 50% of the time all of the time

There is no actual action figure for sale. The action figure does not exist; it was created digitally. I’m offering free downloads of the artwork for your personal use.

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So you’ve probably heard by now that I won’t be producing weekly schedule wallpapers this season, and some have taken that to mean that I won’t be producing any wallpapers at all. However, as I was considering semi-retirement in the face of my grown-up-adult-9-to-5-then-kids-bedtime-sleep-is-important responsibilities, I set aside time to design a few rivalry game wallpapers. The Ohio State game is a given (and probably Michigan State too) and I couldn’t pass up the historic night game at The Big House.

Last year I made Touchdown Jesus say “No Good”, prompting concern from my young daughter over God’s feelings about mocking Jesus. “No sweetie, I’m not mocking Jesus, I’m mocking Notre Dame. God enjoys this kind of thing.” Several other promising and less-blasphemous ideas were left to rot in the pages of my sketchbook, including a few inspired by the saying “All that glitters is not gold.” I pictured everything from a rainbow with a pot of fools good to a Notre Dame helmet peeling to reveal a rusted shell.

Like The Game, the first night game at Michigan Stadium calls for a dramatic rather than humorous image. Where Ohio State was represented by the decaying side of a planet, Notre Dame’s gold is shown as a thin, blistering and cracking layer of paint.

I wrestled over whether to make the centerpiece of the image helmets or logos (you can see the back and forth in the making-of video), but I heard from several people that one of their favorite images from last season was the lump of coal block M so I tried for something similar here. I designed the block M to match the front of Michigan’s legacy jerseys, while Notre Dame’s legacy helmet gets a nod with the shamrock treatment similar to my vine-wrapped block M.

Some other people you should know about

The stadium photo in the background was generously provided by Scott Maez. It would have been extremely difficult to get just the right look from an illustration or a low resolution image, but Scott’s photo was shot the perfect angle (and he was kind enough to share the high resolution file with me). You should check out some of Scott’s other Michigan photography. He has a nice mix of games and other events going back to 2002.

I also want to point you in the direction of MGoBlog users cjm and Blue Indy who have picked up the proverbial ball where I have proverbially dropped it. Both are doing awesome work so if you need a dose of wallpaper goodness between now and my next caffeine-fueled Michigan football design binge they’re your guys.

How it was made

I recorded the screen while I wiggled my mouse around and hoped for a miracle. Lucky for you I sped up the footage to condense a wasted weekend into just a few minutes of video. If you want to see me ruin a nice wallpaper with a happy little shamrock watch this video.

The Bad: I’m not going to be able to post weekly wallpapers like I did last season and I’m probably more disappointed about that than you are. I hope to squeeze in special wallpapers for one or two rivalry games but can’t make any promises. Thanks everyone who enjoyed the artwork last year. I hope to be able to resume the weekly wallpapers during some future season when life isn’t so busy.

Go Blue.