The Commercial

Gilbert Arenas, originally uploaded by etchasketchist.

So they flew me all the way to New York from Los Angeles to draw crap Etch-A-Sketches for an ESPN promo. The gag was that Gilbert Arenas was etching o and Deron WIlliams from the Jazz and Dwight Howard from the Magic were on a winnebago while Mike Breen and Bill Walton do commentary. Deron and Dwight were supposed to be unimpressed with the results, so I understand why they rejected all my good sketches. I started with my usual style, moved on to a simple linear style, then went to a curvey, sketchy cubisty style and finally ended up with the stairs and boxes "etchasketch style" that you see here. When the producer asked me how long it would take to do half a dozen of these, I told him "six minutes." There was a stressful moment when they called me in to do a touch up for the insert and I had to go over all the lines while Gilbert, Deron and Dwight looked over my shoulder in a cramped RV. I accidentally gave Dwight a little neck tumor as I was trying to find my stylus, but nobody seemed to notice or mind. All the guys were as cool and as friendly as can be expected. Commercial sets are no fun. Boring yet stressful. Half the people are running around freaking out while the other half is sitting around bored and waiting for something. Gilbert and Dwight spent most of the day holed up in a tour bus playing Halo 3.