Ballhead mcbeats character illustration
Created a character and a pattern to apply to products. Ultimately, I went with the custom swag mockups like for T-shirts, hoodies, and pajamas.
pattern
The pattern consists of all the assets consisting of a basketball, music note, the #11, and sunglasses and are set up in an interesting, structural design for the pattern. This helped me to eventually evolve it into another kind of compelling pattern for a different design with the music notes and the stripes, in resemblance to how music notes are laid out in staves for representing various musical pitches. Both of these patterns are contingent on the assets and how they can be manipulated into making other designs for future designs to showcase variety, making this a blueprint I could go back in case of future purposes.
Final designs
The final designs came to be once I chose to simplify the design to just one basketball for the head and one for an actual basketball to condense the amount of basketballs being shown. From there, I made the colors more vibrant through edits on Photoshop to make the character look more appealing and fun.
Product mockups
After designing the character and patterns, I created several apparel mockups. For the pajama set, I combined the character, name, and patterns to make the design feel more complete. Then, I designed a T-shirt featuring Ballhead McBeats holding a flaming basketball while leaning on a speaker, along with custom type inspired by the flame effect to create a more cohesive look. Lastly, I made a hoodie showing the character running with the ball while leaving a trail of musical staves and notes, adding a sense of motion and energy across the chest design.
sketches
The inspiration for the sketches of the character "Ballhead McBeats" was from my love for basketball and music. I wanted to make a character who had both of those characteristics while adding a cool element of swag with having the character have accessories like sunglasses, headphones, and arm/leg sleeves. It was a no brainer for the basketball to have a basketball for a head as I thought it would be fun to make. The choice to make him tall coincides with the idea that most basketball players are tall, especially in the NBA
Conclusion
This project was enjoyable because I got to create a fun character inspired by my love of basketball and music and build a brand around it. My biggest challenge was keeping the character consistent across designs, which I overcame through repeated practice. I successfully combined the assets, patterns, characters, and mockups to show variety. Looking back, I might experiment more with the typography in some designs, like the pajama set, but overall, I’m pleased with how the project turned out.