Barkley and Butland, Leeds

Here we have Soccerstarz repaints of a couple of Leeds loanees that, for different reasons, didn't really live up to their potential:

Ross Barkley's loan spell at Elland Road is now infamous among Leeds fans for the comment from then manager Neil Warnock that he was sending Barkley back to Everton because he couldn't guarantee him a place in the starting XI when we had Michael Brown.

Sigh.

Barkley showed a few flashes of his obvious ability while at Elland Road; I remember him setting up a McCormack goal with a brilliant cross, but he just didn't get enough game time to show what he could really do.

Butland's spell at Leeds was also ultimately disappointing. If I remember rightly, he was man of the match in his debut at Middlesbrough, and suddenly we all got excited at the thought of moving up the table, propelled by Butland and fellow loan signing Connor Wickham.

Unfortunately, that never happened and, in what was a fairly unpopular opinion at the time, I felt that Butland did make a fair few mistakes that were largely ignored because of his reputation. Admittedly, he was playing behind a defense performing horribly.

In spite of all that, this repaint was an inevitability for my collection once the Butland figure was released! And I've gotta say, I think it's pretty sharp. I always liked this keeper kit!

Ivica Strok, Celtic

Here's one that certainly has some story behind it! Celtic legend, Ivica Strok:

A really unique job this one; not only was it not based on a real Celtic player, it wasn't even a real person!! Yep, this repaint was all because of... a player on Football Manager!!

I was interested in the story behind it, so I asked the guy who I was painting it for to tell me more about why he wanted it. In short, Strok has to be one of the best FM regens ever!

I may be hazy on some of the details, but it was something like 800 goals for the club, resulting in the shirt number being retired.

As an avid FM player myself at times (the times it doesn't make me want to throw my laptop out the window) that would have been explanation enough. But there's more!

As a bit of a laugh, the guy whose game he showed up in made some Ivica Strok Testimonial programmes, and sold them for charity. And things continued to escalate!

A Strok Celtic shirt can now be found in the Football Museum; Strok's autobiography is in the process of being written and, as the picture below shows, he even has his own Twitter page (with thousands of followers, might I add!)

As any FM player will tell you, the game easily becomes an obsession, and, in my customers own words the whole thing "struck a chord" with other players who think this kind of thing in their heads. Also in his own words "I'm the idiot who put it all into action!"

As much as it was a tricky paint job (those thin white stripes on the green stripes!!) I loved doing this one, just because of the whole story!

If you want to know more about Ivica Strok, honestly, you'll find loads by googling him!!

Lindegaard, PNE

Whole raft of PNE Soccerstarz coming up! Let's start with their number 1!

I've done a Preston 5-a-side team recently! This is the only player that had an existing figure; all the others had to be lookalikes, but between us, me and the customer found some really good likenesses!

Keep an eye out for them!

The only challenge on this figure were the black stripes on the arms!

Incidentally, these PNE figures are also the first time that I have used the new EFL shirt number font (Though there is also a Leeds figure coming up that will be using it. Any guesses who?!)

I've been getting a few responses on Twitter recently; Lindegaard 'liked' a pic of this figure.

Gio, Spurs

I remember there being much excitement about the emergence of Giovani dos Santos. It never really worked out for him at Barcelona, or at Spurs... but that didn't stop the repaint requests!

(Click to enlarge)

Two of the kits from his 4 year spell at White Hart Lane, though, in reality, he spent much of that time out on loan.

I prefer the second of these repaits, just because it was a more interesting kit to do! No.1 does have hooped socks tho...

These are also repaints where...erm... extreme hair means a lack of name, and just a number on the shirt!

In case you were wondering, Gio is currently at LA Galaxy.

Here he is in the above kits:

 

"Hardie", Leeds

(Click to enlarge)

Here's a 'lookalike' figure that was requested quite a while ago as a birthday present. 

The customer said, I've got a friend who looks just like Kevin Mirallas... so choosing a figure wasn't too hard!

Sorry the picture quality isn't great! I think I was still using my old camera (which is slightly worse than the camera on an iPhone!) at this stage.

Incidentally, I think this is the figure with the quickest turnaround that I've done, to meet the birthday deadline! It was delayed in the post, so when it arrived, it was painted and posted within 2 days! 

I couldn't disappoint someone on their birthday, could I?!

If you want a lookalike figure for someone's birthday, Christmas present or Bar Mitzvah, get in touch! Here, on Facebook, or on Twitter.