Illustrating a feature story is just part of the process at the magazine, but an interesting, and of course, highly visual one. Mark Tuchman, our art director, receives the story and together with various editors, including myself, in this case, we bat about ideas. For this Q & A of gaming expert Kurt Squire by Christopher Harris, Mark suggested a caricature, which - after more discussion - incorporates a football theme based on Squire's discussion of Madden NFL in the interview.

We were fortunate to commission the talented illustrator Tom Richmond for the job. He's worked on comics and is a major contributor to MAD magazine.
Tom has kindly allowed me to share his initial sketches for the piece here.

Mark shares the story with the artist and although he may discuss broad concepts that might work for the illustration or ones that we'd like to emphasize editorially, Mark is careful not to direct the artist explicitly, as in "Draw this." He also supplied him with photos of the subject.

Tom came back with three sketches, the accompanying notes are his:
 
"Football 1 [above]: This basically shows an image "inside" the game with Kurt as a QB surrounded by falling game DVDs and an XBOX and Playstation with requisite controllers. In the background I though we could do a cascading pattern of "1"s and "0"s aka programming code ala "The Matrix". We can play up the "nerd" part with accessories like tape on the glasses and a pocket protector with pens, possibly adding some books on computer science amid the gaming equipment."

"Football 2: This has both a nerdy Kurt playing the game, possibly with lots of books piled up around him, with the light coming from the screen showing his digital self tossing a football. We could play up the nerdy vs. the jock by making him buff as the QB. R=This is again a sort of play on "The Matrix".

"Football 3: Straight action shot of Kurt bursting from the TV screen, with light rays and glass about him vaulting over a gaming console. We again could play up the "nerd" aspects of Kurt with the tape-repaired glasses, making him skinny with big hands and feet, and with a pocket protector and/or sliderule."

Our thoughts: while visually interesting, the gaming elements of #1 didn't reflect the gist of the piece, which is the connection between games and learning, rather than the consoles. (I loved the "1"s and "0"s)  Appreciating that this is a caricature, we felt the nerdy elements, pocket protector and tape on glasses, were maybe a bit much. The last sketch was the most dynamic, but we wanted to deemphasize some of the other elements. But we did want to "locate" him so we explicitly requested red and white, U of Wisconsin colors, and heck, let's put a cup in the foreground with a badger, the team's mascot!

Tom turns around a "final," ...

Et, voilà!