Proko Pears

Fundamental’s. One thing I never really buckled down on during my drawing bursts was the fundamentals. I’ve been doing Proko’s Drawing Basics class alongside Draw-A-Box (more on that in another post). The very first project Proko has us do is drawing a very simplified pear. There’s also a “level 2” portrait, which I attempted and will keep to myself… the result was horrifying.

For the pears, it’s a simple but challenging exercise. All lines must be straight. The values are simplified into five basic values. Generally, two dark and three light (including the highlight). I attempted the first one without watching the demo and then cleaned up my mistakes afterwards.

The idea with simplifying the forms is to imagine that this pear is “chiseled” out of stone. Instead of a rounded surface, you get planes. These planes are easier to identify with a simple value scale. It’s also easy to spot mistakes. For example, in the image above, I struggled with that weird area in the lower left of the pear. The dark shadow kind of hooks up, however, I didn’t really make the lighter values feel like a plane that made sense. Specifically, that Nevada looking piece.

I did about five more of these pears, which is overkill considering this is the very first project in the lesson. The point isn’t trying to master anything but I had fun with it. Above is my final attempt. Not perfect, and definitely still some work to do. The next project in the lesson is a “CSI” project. CSI stands for c-curves, s-curves, and i for straight lines. Maybe because a capitalized I looks like a straight line? I don’t know. I’ll explain more in the next post about these.

Slide Towards the Mean: Predators 4 - Blackhawks 3

Note: Normally, I won’t do these on weekends, but I’ve been having fun with micro.blog, so here you go.

The Chicago Blackhawks' 4-3 loss to the Nashville Predators extended their losing streak to five games. Of the five teams the Hawks lost to, three of them were teams the Hawks should have beaten. But didn’t. Except for the Buffalo game (a team they should have beat), all of their losses have been by one goal. Two of those were against the Colorado Avalanche and the Minnesota Wild. Last night’s game? Winnable but ugly.

Game Notes

Chicago started the game strong, especially from the second line (Bertuzzi-Nazar-Teravainen). That line had a strong first shift with good wall play. But the first was fairly even for both Chicago and Nashville. 5v5 shot attempts were split evenly with a 50% Corsi, but the Hawks had a 43.71% expected goals share. A bit more annoying was that the Hawks had six minutes of the man-advantage towards the end, but didn’t score (Ryan Donato did score the opening goal after the power play ended).

The second period is where the Hawks' warts really began to show. Chicago had a 38.1% Corsi and a 32.16 xG% at 5v5, and the eye test reflected that. The Hawks' defense struggled to break out, made bad passes, and didn’t play solid defense. The Predators took advantage of the Hawks' poor neutral zone play by leaving a winger up high for the stretch pass. That’s how Matthew Wood scored Nashville’s first goal and how Ryan O’Reilly scored in the third period. By the way, I recall the Preds taking advantage of the Hawks like this last season. Below is a shot map from the second period.

Steven Stamkos scored the second goal for the Preds following a Frank Nazar turnover in the NZ. This came after prolonged time in the Hawks' zone, but really highlighted the type of night the Hawks had in the DZ and NZ.

Yes, the game wasn’t only on the Hawks' defense (Oliver Moore made some errors that stood out to me), but if the defense had been tighter, Nashville wouldn’t have scored four goals. Sure, Luke Evangelista’s goal should have been stopped by Arvid Soderblom, but I’m not pinning this loss on him by any means.

Bonus Observations

• Connor Bedard only had three shots on goal and three shot attempts at 5v5.
• Ryan Greene had three shots on goal and seven shot attempts. I’ve said it in the past, I think Greene will be an excellent third-line player. Whether that’s on the wing or the middle.
• Frank Nazar continued to look not himself. He had two shots on goal and two shot attempts. The Hawks had a 44.44% Corsi and 31.93 xG% (5v5) with him on the ice.
• I would have liked to see the Hawks put a bad second period behind them and open the third ready to kill a one-goal deficit. Unfortunately, that push never came until Teuvo Teravainen scored on a Juuse Saros mistake.
• Final thought… on the Blackhawks' jerseys. I know some people don’t like them, but I thought they looked great. I don’t care that every team has a black alternate (and sure, not every team needs one), but the Hawks have had black jerseys going all the way back to 1926.

Figured I’d write about art. This is my first time doing this, so please… be gentle.

Art is one of those things that comes and goes in my life. The last time I made art a consistent practice in my life was from 2021-23 (with pauses in there). At that time, I was getting out of the Marine Corps (for the second time in my life), got engaged to my now wife, and started a new job. Art fell to the wayside and I didn’t pick it up again until recently.

Beyond just drawing and making cool images (at least, I think they’re cool), I find it as a way to connect with people. Specifically, one of my good friends (who will remain nameless because it’d give him away). Much like hockey was initially a way for me to connect with on of my best friends in the Marines, art has become a way to connect with this other friend. Who, whether we both like it or not, are friends for life thanks to the green weiner.

Below are some studies I recently did. These artists are some of my recent influences and will be linked accordingly.

Vandal is an artist who’s work inspired me to get back into drawing. I don’t remember how I cam across his work. This piece I did is a study of this piece. I changed the grenade to a mortar round and gave it a “Rando-style” skull. Done digitally.

Rando is a tattoo artist out in 29 Palms, CA. Someone showed me a tattoo they got from him, and I loved the linework. Seriously, his linework is probably the best out there. I ended up getting four tattoos from him and plan on getting more. I dig skulls, and snakes are always fun to draw, so I picked one of his pieces to study to get better at both. Pencil and markers.

This is a flash study from Marc Mutan, another Southern Cali-based tattoo artist. I’ve never gotten a piece done by him, but he’s on my bucket list. Dude has great linework, and I love the colorways he uses. Specifically, I want one of these reapers that he does.

I’ll be back with more stuff that I’m working on. Nothing exciting, as it’s been a lot of fundamental work.

Arty Party

Bear with me. I’m still learning the quirks of micro.blog, but so far… I really like it. Figured that while I’m in a turkey-induced coma, I’d give a Blackhawks post a shot. I have this scheduled to post in the morning, so we’ll see how that goes. Also, the Hawks play tonight at 7 pm CT; they’re hosting the Nashville Predators.

Let’s talk about Artyom Levshunov.

A quick note, apologize for any weird formatting or glitches. Still learning how to do this in Markdown

Levshunov

Artyom Levshunov finally scored his first NHL goal in the Blackhawks' 4-3 OT loss to the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night. Surprisingly, it took 40 games in the NHL—he’s been at a 4.31 shots per 60 and 8.79 shot attempts/60 this season alone. That’s a high volume of shots, and some might look at that as “garbage” volume. A high volume of low-quality shots doesn’t really mean much. I’d argue that if it’s coming from a defenseman on the point, that’s a good thing because those are the shots that turn into rebounds.

Levshunov’s high-volume shooting was one of the arguments a friend used to point out why Levshunov wasn’t a good player. The other arguments were a large amount of starts in the offensive zone, terrible decision-making, and horrible defensive zone mistakes. This friend was also very upset that Ivan Demidov wasn’t selected in 2024 (I don’t blame him; most of us were).

Let’s look at some numbers. 71% of Levshunov’s shifts start in the offensive zone (OZ), according to Natural StatTrick. That’s the highest on the team. There’s certainly a lot of sheltering there, but considering that Levshunov is 19, should arguably be with the Rockford IceHogs (something I disagree with), and has an offensive tool set—I’m fine with that. But those zone starts are partially why his stats look pretty good (a 49.09 xG% but a 56.13% actual goals share at 5v5).

This clip is a perfect example of what Levshunov usually does after making a bad decision. He’s such a good skater that he backchecked and recovered to disrupt a Seattle Kraken breakaway. The mistake that led to this (an ill-timed pinch) is an example of the types of reads that Levshunov usually finds himself cleaning up (like that giveaway when he was QBing the PP1). But he finds a way to come back from those mistakes.

Like most young defensemen, Levshunov has a long way to go in the DZ. But I don’t think he’s been that bad. His reach often breaks up plays, and he’s physical on the puck carrier. Concerns include puck watching, going behind the net when he shouldn’t, and what he does with the puck on a retrieval. But like most young defensemen, the defense will come. I’m more concerned with what he does when the Hawks are trying to score, anyway.

As of tonight, Artyom Levshunov is tied for fourth in scoring with 14 points. He has questionable decision-making and needs to clean up some defensive zone work. But Levshunov has been very impressive considering his age. Should he be in the AHL? That’s up for debate, but because of his skating ability, I still believe keeping him in the NHL is fine. Should we have taken Ivan Demidov? As someone who watches a lot of Montreal Canadiens games, I still think that’s a sore subject for me. Either way, Levshunov’s chaotic play has made me second-guess my take that he should be in the NHL, but right now, the kid belongs.

Take two.

Not really sure how micro.blog works, but I figured I’d at least try it out and give it a shot.

I’m Steve, and I’m just a guy who likes to write. Not that I’m good at it or knowledgeable about the things that I’m interested in. I have an urge to write, and I must feed this urge, or I become a mean bastard.

I mostly write about the Chicago Blackhawks. Or, at least I did. I had (have?) my own Substack, and I am currently taking a break from writing for On Tap Sports Net due to real-life obligations. In the meantime, I need a place to unleash my thoughts, or, like I said… I become a mean bastard.

Well, now that we’re awkwardly staring at each other, I guess I should tell you why I’m here. Why micro.blog, specifically.

To be honest, it seems like there’s no one here. I don’t want to chase likes, page views, clicks, or any of that bullshit. I also don’t want to pay a stupid amount of money to host a blogging website. And about Substack, that place blows. So I don’t really consider micro.blog a home, not yet at least. But I’m testing the bed and the sofa. The toilet seems nice.

I’ll be writing about hockey and the Blackhawks when I can. I’ll share my shitty art, write about a book I read, and whatever else is on my mind.

Did I do good? Is this how this stuff works?

Until next time.