Green Ducks

Anaheim Ducks:

I was watching a Ducks game recently (it was when they beat the Canucks, my favourite team, 9-1), when I thought to myself that their dark jersey really doesn't need any white in the striping.  So I decided to make a concept like that.  Halfway through making the concept I thought it would look good with the black replaced by a dark green, so I did that.  This is the end result.

Thanks for visiting!

Yellow Bruins

Boston Bruins Third:

Just a quick post today to show this yellow third jersey I made to go along with the Bruins concept I posted on Tuesday.

Have a good day!

Retro Bruins Again

Boston Bruins:

It seems like whenever I'm stuck for ideas for concepts I make a retro looking Bruins concept.  After my first NHL Redesign I made this concept, and today's concept is my first concept since my De-Edge series.  The striping is inspired by numerous jerseys the Bruins wore in the first four decades, most notably this jersey from 1934-36 and this black jersey from 1955-57.  I used the Bruins current fonts, and the logo is a combination of their current logo and their 1949-95 logo (as you can see below).

Logo:

The logo is the same logo I used for the Bruins in my De-Edge series (along with most other Bruins concepts I've made), but with an added yellow outline.  With that outline I don't need to recolour the logo for different colour backgrounds (just like their current logo).

Thanks for visiting!

Coyotes Guest Concept

Arizona Coyotes, by Scott:

The Phoenix Coyotes are set to become the Arizona Coyotes next year, and with that change Scott proposes that the Coyotes also change their uniforms.  He brings back the pattern that was on the Coyotes original uniforms (I don't know what to call that pattern so for the rest of the post I'll just say The Pattern).  I've seen a lot of concepts that bring back The Pattern in different ways and they all seem to look good, this concept included.  I really like the fact that the home uniform doesn't have any white at all.  The choices for the logos and fonts are also good too (a bit off topic, but I hate the Coyotes current number font).  My only suggestion, and this is just personal preference not something I think needs changing, would be to go with "Brick Red" pants.

Grade: A  (Yes I switched from rating to grading concepts after only rating two concepts).

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Now I'm going to go a bit off topic again but it kind of relates to the concept.  I noticed that Scott used The Pattern on the socks, which I don't think any NHL team has done before (I've also seen this on many concepts before, including my concepts, I don't want to single out Scott).  When the Coyotes used The Pattern on their jerseys in the past, they always had plain socks, same thing with the Hurricanes when they had the hurricane-flag pattern on their jerseys.  Now what I'm wondering is whether that was just a design choice made by the team to use simple socks, or if for some reason patterns couldn't be done on socks.  I'm thinking that it should be possible by using sublimation, the only issue I can think of is that there might be a seam on the back of the socks where the pattern doesn't line up.  So I'm going to ask you folks, do you think the teams just chose to go with simple socks or were they told that patterns on socks are impossible?  Let me know what you think in the comments.

Happy Hockey Day in Canada!

Ducks Guest Concept

Anaheim Ducks, by Ricky:

Here Ricky updates another one of the jerseys from the NHL's first batch of third jerseys, this one being the Duck's infamous "Wild Wing" jersey.  My opinion of this concept is basically the same as my opinion of Ricky's Canucks concept from a few days ago, I could basically just copy and paste my review from that post and switch the word Canucks to Ducks.  In fact that's exactly what I'm going to do...

"For this concept Ricky took the Ducks first third jersey and updated it to the Reebok Edge system using the Ducks current colours, logos, and fonts.  It's a good update of the old jersey, this colour scheme improves the jersey a bit in my opinion.  That being said, I'd rather this jersey stay in the 90's, but it's still fun to see as a concept.  This is hard to rate because it's an update of an old jersey and not an original concept, so I'm not even going to try to rate it."

I just want to add that it would be fun to see the "Wild Wing" again for a one time event (even better if it was against the King's "Burger King" jersey).  Also I always thought that with a couple of changes the "Wild Wing" jersey could be a decent jersey, all you have to do is replace the mascot-breaking-through-the-ice with a normal logo, and use a normal font for the name and numbers.

Have a good day!

Canucks Guest Concept

Vancouver Canucks, by Ricky:

For this concept Ricky took the Canucks first third jersey and updated it to the Reebok Edge system using the Canucks current colours, logos, and fonts.  It's a good update of the old jersey, this colour scheme improves the jersey a bit in my opinion.  That being said, I'd rather this jersey stay in the 90's, but it's still fun to see as a concept.  This is hard to rate because it's an update of an old jersey and not an original concept, so I'm not even going to try to rate it.

Thanks for visiting!

Soldier Field Guest Concept

Penguins and Blackhawks Stadium Series, by Ricky:

Ricky's third and final Stadium Series concept is for the game at soldier field.  Once again I like that the chrome logos and funky numbers numbers are gone, but I also like that there are still elements that are used for all the Stadium Series jerseys like the angled sleeve stripes, the matching shoulder yoke cuts, and also the multi-colour helmets which is a new feature Ricky's used for all his Stadium Series concepts.  Looking at both jerseys together I see that this would be a great looking game, the bright yellow Penguins jersey and the black Blackhawks jersey would be a nice colour versus colour matchup.  Now I'll focus on one team at a time starting with those bright yellow Penguins uniform.  I love the yellow version of the 90's "Robo-Penguin" jersey.  It translates almost perfectly to the Stadium Series template, although I would re-work the lines in the shoulder yoke a bit.  The bottom line is good how it is, but I would make the top line almost completely straight across and then make the middle line curved only half as much as the bottom line (hopefully that makes sense).  Now moving on to the Blackhawks uniform, which I think is also almost perfect.  I like how the logos have a white outline so their don't get lost on the black jersey, and I love that the striping is like how it is on their current pants (red surrounded by white).  Speaking of pants, I think the red pants and helmets are great, it creates a unique look that in my opinion looks really good.  I only have two minor complaints about the Blackhawks jersey, the first is that I like white numbers better than the red numbers, and the second is that the striping pattern is the same as what Ricky used for his Ducks and Kings Stadium Series concept.  I would of liked to see a unique striping pattern for each team in this series, but still this was a very good take on the Stadium Series jerseys, better than the actual Stadium Series jerseys in my opinion.
My rating for today's concept:  4.5/5

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Yankee Stadium Guest Concept

Rangers and Islanders and Devils Stadium Series, by Ricky:

Part two of Ricky's Stadium Series concepts are here.  Like with his concepts for Dodger Stadium, I like the fact that he got rid of the chrome logos and weird numbers, and I also still like the fact that the helmets all have a matching design.  Overall looking at the jerseys together I see one problem, which is that the orange Islanders jersey and red Rangers jersey don't contrast enough.  I think the fans and even the players would have a hard time telling the two teams apart.  Now I'll look at the teams by themselves starting with the Rangers.  Normally a red jersey wouldn't make sense for them, but being a fun one-off event like the Stadium Series I think it works (besides the contrast issue against the Islanders).  I also like seeing the lady liberty logo again, and I really like how the yoke resembles the yoke on their road jersey.  I'm not a big fan of using red pants with a red jersey, I'd suggest making the pants blue and then making the socks red.  Now moving on to the Islanders, I love the fact that the jersey is orange, and to be honest I like everything else as well, I have no complaints.  The Devils jersey is good too, I don't think we'll ever see a green jersey for the Devils but like with the Rangers red jersey I think it works for the Stadium Series.  I also think the logo and pants work well with both black and green, and I'd actually suggest adding black to the striping, but it also looks good the way it is now.

I've decided to start rating concepts and my rating here is a 3.5/5 (it would be at least a four if it wasn't for the contrast issue between the Islanders and Rangers).

Thanks for visiting!

New Year, New Look, New Templates

Well the title should really be "New Year, Updated Look, Updated Templates", but it didn't sound as catchy.

Anyways, as you can see I've made a few changes to the look of the blog, but I've kept the basic design intact.  The logo is the same as before, but it is now only in one shade of green, so it doesn't have the bevel effect it had before.  That one shade of green is a brand new shade of green, it is darker than the kelly green I was using previously but lighter than the forest green.  I also have moved the pages for my concept series and jersey collection up to the top where the other pages are.

I have also updated all the templates that were on the Templates page.  Most of the changes were very minor (ranging from making sure the shade of grey used for the jersey stitching was consistent throughout all the templates, to changing the position of the sock stripes to a more accurate height, among with many other minor changes), but I did make one non-minor change which is the option of adding a visor to the helmet.

I based the visor off of this image on the facebook page of The (unofficial) NHL Uniform Database, so if anyone should get credit it should be the guy who runs that website.  I also made a two layer version of the helmet and visor (that you can find on the Templates page), which is good for programs like Paint.Net that have that the ability to have more than one layer.

Vancouver Canucks Third Jersey:

Now I wanted to create a concept to share using the updated templates, but I had no ideas for concepts so I just made the Canucks current third jersey.  You can see on the image the two layer version of the visor, which has a bit of shading.

Happy New Year everyone!