Huge news for the people of New York City: you have a new Sketchmaster, and his name is Kevin Richards. OK, to be fair it’s the first time we’ve had one of those, but his title was hard-won at the first ever New York Sketchbattle Championship hosted at Jalopnik HQ earlier this week. It was a huge success, and we have you fine readers to thank for that.
Nearly 200 Jalopnik readers, other car aficionados, journalist friends and industry folks packed our office Wednesday night to watch seven rising-star designers duke it out across three timed rounds of sketching.
We had them do a modern-day Bandit Trans-Am, a modern electric Dusenberg, and for the final tie-breaker, a Volkswagen Beetle from the year 2100. Of course, it shouldn’t surprise you from that last one that the judge was our own Jason Torchinsky, along with ace Ford Motor Company Digital Design Instructor Jordan Beckley.
All our designer contestants were top notch and turned out stunning work under pressure. But in the end, it was Richards—an industrial designer based right here in New York, and taking part in his first-ever Sketchbattle—who emerged victorious. He’s got the Sketchmaster title to defend next year.
Also, you raised $1,550, that will go straight to the Bard Prison Initiative, a nonprofit that helps people in prison to get college degrees. Great job!
Once again, a huge thanks to all you readers who came out to watch the contest, talk about cars and drink our booze. (You’re good at that.) We’re also grateful to Sketchbattle organizers Frank Schwartz and Brook Banham. Huge thanks also to event sponsors Covestro, Brazen and Mobsteel, and as always, to Victor Jeffreys and the unstoppable GMG events team.
Yeah, we should definitely do this again. I hope you’re game for it.
And finally, some close-ups of the sketches from our new Sketchmaster:
