So, I decided to have a crack at making my own version of the NBA 2K14 cover. You know, the one with LeBron James looking all intense. Seemed like a fun little project, a throwback. Thought it’d be straightforward. Boy, was I wrong.
It’s not just about grabbing a picture of a basketball player and slapping some text on it. Oh no. That original cover, it’s got a certain feel to it. The lighting, the pose, the whole atmosphere. Trying to replicate that, or even just capture a sliver of its essence, turned into a real rabbit hole.
The Nitty-Gritty of Trying
First off, finding the right kind of image. You need something high-res, with the right kind of action or intensity. I spent hours, I tell ya, just scrolling through photos. Most of them are just not it. Either the angle is wrong, or the lighting is flat, or the player looks like he’s just remembered he left the stove on.
Then, you gotta get it into some software. I messed around with GIMP mostly, because, well, it’s free. Photoshop is great if you’ve got the cash, but for a personal kick-around project? GIMP does the job, mostly. But it has its quirks. Things that should be simple sometimes feel like wrestling a greased pig. You get there, but you’re sweating.
Here’s a list of things that ate up my time:
- Cutting out the player. Man, even with modern tools, getting a clean cutout without it looking like a cardboard standee is an art.
- Matching the background. The 2K covers often have this stylized, slightly grungy, arena-lights-in-your-face kind of background. Creating that from scratch or blending existing elements? Hours.
- Fonts. Oh, the fonts. Finding something that looks sporty, modern, but not cheesy. And then getting the placement, the sizing, the effects like glows or bevels just right. You’d think it’s trivial, but it makes or breaks the whole thing.
- Color grading. Making everything look cohesive, like it all belongs in the same universe. This is where I really started pulling my hair out. Adjusting levels, curves, saturation… you nudge one thing, something else goes wonky.
It’s like one of those old cars I used to tinker with. You fix the carburetor, then the alternator decides to pack it in. Always something.
Why I Even Bothered With This Whole Thing
You might be wondering why I’d sink so much time into what’s essentially glorified fan art. Well, it’s a bit of a story. For a good few years, my day job had me designing… let’s just say, very unexciting corporate stuff. Think endless PowerPoint templates and brochures for products nobody actually understood. Soul-draining, to be honest. My creative spark felt like it was down to a pilot light, flickering weakly.
Then, a while back, I was clearing out some old boxes. Found my dusty old PlayStation 3 and a stack of games. And right there was NBA 2K14. I remember booting it up, and man, the memories. That game was a big deal for me when it came out. I wasn’t in a great place back then, working a dead-end job, barely making ends meet. Playing a few games of 2K, sinking those virtual buzzer-beaters, it was a small escape. A little bit of control in a life that felt pretty out of control.
Seeing that cover again, LeBron looking like he could take on the world, it just clicked. I thought, “I wanna make something like that. Not for anyone else, just for me.” It wasn’t about becoming a professional game cover artist. It was about trying to recapture a bit of that fire, that feeling of creating something cool, something I liked.
So, I dove in. Spent evenings and weekends hunched over my computer. My wife probably thought I was nuts, obsessing over the exact angle of a shadow or the precise shade of orange in an explosion graphic I was trying to add. There were times I nearly gave up, thinking, “This is ridiculous, what am I even doing?”
But I kept at it. And slowly, piece by piece, it started to come together. It wasn’t a perfect replica, not by a long shot. My version had a different player, a slightly different vibe. But it was mine.
In the end, the actual “cover” I made is probably just okay. If I showed it to a pro, they’d pick it apart in seconds. But that’s not the point. The process, that whole journey of figuring things out, struggling with the tools, and finally making something I felt good about – that was the real win. It reminded me that I actually enjoy creating stuff. It sort of woke up that part of my brain that had been snoozing for too long.
That little project, as silly as it might sound, got me back into tinkering with graphics, trying out new things. Funny how sometimes looking back at something old, like an old game cover, can push you forward. I still have that image I made saved on my desktop. Not because it’s a masterpiece, but because it reminds me of the fun of just making something, for the sake of making it.
