This is a project I’ve been working on recently. I enjoy analyzing art movements, collecting elements from these movements and developing new techniques as well as being attracted to major sporting events like the FIFA World Cup and the FIBA World Championship. I think it’s at these events that people present the best part of themselves and their culture. This series of illustrations is the outcome of all these interests combined. More specifically, it focuses on the current buzz going on in Turkey – the hosts of the FIBA World Championship. Turkey is a place where East meets West, so I felt it appropriate to combine Western elements taken from Cubism and Futurism with colours that are commonly seen in Eastern structures – like turquise, pinks and variations of red.
Although these illustrations only cover athletes from Greece (my homeland) and the US (my favorite basketball team and most probably the winner of this Championship), I hope to create a set of all 32 participating countries….that might take forever, but lets see.
Hope you enjoy them!
All illustrations have been created using a personally developed technique of scripts and hacks, and of course loads of patience in Synthetik Studio Artist, the Adobe Creative Suite and the Apple Quick Time Pro platform.

There are two major approaches in this series. The first could be named “Neo-Futuristic Vectors”. Large and small polygons filled with vivid colors give a retro 3D look to the illustration. From an artistic point of view it can be called a tribute to Balla, Sironi and Duchamp and of course to the theories of Nino Di Salvatore, Bruno Munari and Rudolf Arnheim.
See some examples and close-ups:

The second style of illustrations combine the Neo-Furistic Vector Technique with my passion for Mosaics and collages. American athletes created from US landmarks and Greek players made from beautiful scenes in my country. See some examples and close-ups:

You can see the complete “Turkey 2010 Basketball series on Behance.