Contender Hudson Valley
Power Ranking Graphics
I worked with the Contender Esports Gaming Center in Wappingers Falls for many years until their unfortunate closing in 2026 to create graphics for their Smash Brothers events. These graphics were made to honor community members for outstanding performance by rating the top 10 players and showcasing them in dramatic fashion on these graphics. For these two projects I used a combination of 3D posing techniques and texturing in Blender which would allow for the character models to fit the theme of each respective graphic. I also used vector techniques in Illustrator to sell the style, and composed the final design in Photoshop.
Model Posing
For the first step I'd import the models into blender and pose them how I'd like for each character, using existing animations as a baseline. In the end it would look like this:
Shading & Rendering
For the next step I'd do any texturing, lighting, and editing of the model in order to produce the final 3D render. This often involved using the process of Nodes in Blender to mess with how the model was shaded and composited. Here is how those would turn out:
Design Style Implementation
From there I bring the renders into Illustrator to match the unique style of each power ranking graphic. Here is what it looks like:
Composition & External Media
And in the end once I've completed that process with every player I put them all together in Photoshop to create one big graphic! For season 11 (the first one) the theme was using these shattered lines and heavily sketchy style to make things feel cartoony and cel-shaded. I used this style to also pack references for each individual player/character into their respective section since there was a lot of room for that in the outline sketch. For the season 13 graphic (the second one) I went with the theme of 'Mid Hudson Memories' since this was after we found out the store was closing down at the end of the year. I went with the polaroid and more nostalgic feel in order to reflect the memories theme. The individual photos also allowed for similar room to add references for each player/character.
Additionally along with each graphic I went beyond to create supplementary rewards for each of the player who made it on the rankings! For Season 11 I made posters that commemorated each of the individual players and show off their player graphics more prominently since some of the smaller details would get lost on the graphic. For Season 13 I made small polaroid designs mimicing the ones on the graphic so that it fit the theming and felt like a special sendoff to the season since it would be the last one held at the venue it had been previously held at for 4 years.
