2022 Minnesota Game Poster: Rutgers

This week's game poster leaves contemporary music and returns to the classic — specifically, one of the most important albums ever made, Black Sabbath by Black Sabbath.

Goldy takes the place of the woman on the cover, cloaked in black against an ominous backdrop. In this case, instead of Mapledurham Watermill on the Thames, the building across the water is the U of M's boathouse on the Mississippi. I've tried to avoid leaning into boat-, rowing-, or P.J. Fleck-related imagery with my posters unless I really need to fill a space, but I was having difficulty finding another building to put into the background here. The boathouse is near enough to water and trees to work in this spot, and it's on campus.

I took some liberties with the trees in the background, making their wood darker and more foreboding, as well as adding a combination of darkness and light fog to mask some of the imperfections along the ground. Because of how high the trees go, I added a faint glow around "Golden Gophers" at the top so it could still be read.

Originally, I wanted to use a retro version of Goldy, as a more feral-looking gopher might look more frightening. But it just wasn't working, mainly because I couldn't find a way of using something that looked like the old logo without just being the old logo. So I inserted the modern Goldy and made him a bit paler. Note his ears poking through the hood.

I feel rather proud of this one. It took some effort and turned out well, it was a bit less straightforward than just putting Goldy in the place of a famous musician, and it put a lot of Black Sabbath songs into my head while I drew. These are all positive things.