Your favourite NHL Goalie mask was likely designed on iPad

Many of the cooler goalie masks worn between the pipes this NHL season have been designed by artists using iPad and the Apple Pencil.

I was lucky enough to chat with Calgary artist Jordon Bourgeault about his process, the tech he uses, and how he makes awesome social media content (seriously, follow him here) using his iPhone and iPad.

Bourgeault has designed for tons of goaltenders in the past, but this season, you can see Sam Montembeault on the Montreal Canadians, Jacob Markstrom on the New Jersey Devils and a few others sporting his airbrushed designs. He started working with airbrushes while working for an industrial paint company and, from there, quickly gathered his own supplies and started painting his buddies’ masks, which catapulted him to the NHL stage once his portfolio grew.

Roughly five years ago, he started designing on iPad with Apple Pencil using various apps before settling on Procreate. He now uses a 13-inch M4 iPad Pro and an Apple Pencil Pro since that combo allows him to work faster than physical art supplies while also being more portable. There’s a lot of crunch time leading up to the NHL season each year, so being able to take the tablet to his couch on some of those longer nights has been really helpful in allowing Bourgeault to keep his creative flow going even when he doesn’t want to be in his workshop anymore. He says he hasn’t touched pen to paper for his design work in years since the iPad is so much easier to work on.

When I asked him how he was finding the upgrades to the new Apple Pencil Pro, he told me that he was still getting used to the added tilt controls, but the Squeeze functionality was a game changer since it allowed him to switch between tools easily. Just being able to swap between brushes and having quick access to the undo control or eraser saves a lot of time over the 50-odd hours he might spend designing a mask on iPad. I also asked if he used special grips for his Apple Pencil since I’ve seen many companies advertise them, but he uses it normally. This made sense to me since, without a grip, it attaches magnetically to the side of the iPad.

Once he’s done designing, which is usually done with a bit of back-and-forth with each goalie, it usually takes upwards of 200 hours to finish painting each mask. In addition to painting the mask, he also does the straps and sometimes even the cage to match the overall design. Since this process takes so long, Bourgeault loves being able to start with the iPad since it streamlines the design side of the workflow without needing to import or export files between different devices, allowing him to save a few hours, which in the crunch time can be really helpful.

That’s not to say that he doesn’t use other tech for his work. He took the call in his paint studio, and in the background, you could see his old iPad Pro on a stand near where he paints so he can have the design up on the screen so he can colour match his work in real life with what he created on the screen. Beyond that, he also has a big vinyl cutter, airbrushes, and a compressor. Not to mention his iPhone, which he clamps to an old cymbal stand from his drum kit to film all his work for social media.

He’s got some really fun and ambitious videos on there as well, including a crazy stop-motion video of a Carey Price mask from a few years ago that he says was easily over a few thousand frames. It’s an incredibly smooth animation and blew me away when I stumbled on it. I asked him how he edits all this, and he said it’s mostly on his iPhone with an app called VN editor, but sometimes he does move over to the iPad, where he uses Davinci Resolve.

Overall, Bourgeault is a really impressive Canadian artist working in a really fun medium, but he’s not alone, and Apple and the NHL are even running a campaign this year to highlight other artists (not all Canadian) who have used iPads and Apple Pencils in their work. You can see some other designs here.

Header image credit: Getty