As a giant basketball fan, I often like to breakaway from my commercial art focus and just have fun with Basketball Designs. This was a chance to do that and also create a new lecture and design challenge for my students at the Toronto Film School. When designing projects for my students I often build them myself beforehand; both as a trial and also to just enjoy creating something new. In this instance, I decided to create "Royal Paintings" of "The Starters" (a group of awesome hosts on NBA TV). I tweeted at them and the next day I saw my work being shown on National TV in the US. That rush of excitement was a great way to show my classes that sometimes just having fun with your work can take it to that larger audience they're often looking for starting out.