Leeds United Early 90s Vivid Imaginations Figures (part one!)

This has been a pretty big project!

As well as getting figures of loads of his mates in their Sunday League hey day(!) one of my regulars wanted Leeds' famous 1-11 from the title season in various kits from that era!

Here are a the first few! Being as many successful teams are built from the back, here's the goalie and 2 centre halves!

Choosing to start with these three figures also gave me the chance to show 3 different kits!

Interestingly, he chose the goalie kit from the following season (the first ever Premier League campaign) for John Lukic, which I didn't mind, as it was a nice challenge to paint.

The other 2, Chris Fairclough and Chris Whyte, were both in kits from the title winning campaign of 1992. They were chosen on the suitability of the collars on the figures!

Al three of these had to be 'lookalike' figures- in fact the only Leeds players of this era produced in this style of figure were Batty and Cantona.

I had to change the hair colour for Lukic, and add a moustache, and hairless patches for Whyte!

Rooney, Groggs figure

In a week where Wayne Rooney has been making headlines again, I thought I'd post a Rooney repaint to the blog!

And here it is!

(Click to enlarge)

As I mentioned in my previous post about painting a Groggs Figure, one of the main things on my mind is the fact that I'd better do a good job because of how much the figure costs!!

This was quite a straightforward one though, to be honest; even the shape of the sculpt of the collar suited the paint job.

One of the other issues with these figures is getting the transfers on straight, and neatly because the figure is shaped very differently to most of the figures I do. It has more contours that are much deeper. These ones went on OK tho... it just makes the number look wonky on the photo!

Heskey, Bolton

Considering the... status(?) that Heskey has among football fans, and the number of clubs he's played for, it's somewhat surprising that I've never done a repaint of him until now!

Here he is in Bolton colours:

(Click to enlarge)

This was part of a little spate of Bolton figures that I did, including the Lofthouse that I blogged a few days ago, and some others you'll see soon, if you keep your eyes on the blog!

I love the trim round the collar and cuffs. Definitely something I wouldn't have even attempted in the past!

A pleasing repaint overall!

A couple of Man City Tonkas!

The majority of the Tonka repaints so far have been Leeds ones, but here are acouple of Man City requests I've had recently:

(Click to enlarge)

I enjoyed doing both of these, but in particular the goalie kit!

I was very pleased with the 'patchy' patterns, and the guy who bought it also highlighted these!

Also, as I'm sure any regular reader will know by now, I was pleased to have the exact font that City wore at the time for the shirt numbers!

Ruddock and Sheringham, Spurs away

Back to posting a couple of figures together, due to them being in the same kit!

Here, in a Spurs away kit, are Ruddock and Sheringham:

Nice little kit to repaint, this one. It's design is just so early 90s!

Keep an eye on the blog and the facebook page for other figures in this kit!

Jim Rollo, Vivid Imaginations figure

For a player who's spent the majority of his career in non-league, Jim Rollo has a higher than expected number of repaints!

Having done home and away Prostar versions of him, here is the latest:

While these figures do take a lot more work to finish, they do allow for a lot of detail to be added with a bit more ease.

I particularly liked the second sponsor on the back, and the Errea captain's band!

More Vivid Imaginations figures coming soon!

Barton, Wimbledon

In those rare times when I don't have many orders on, I have a look in my box of spare figures, and do a repaint that just takes my interest... or that I think will sell on ebay!

Here's one of those:

You often end up with a few Warren Barton figures from the original England '96 range when you buy a joblot of figures! 

And while Wimbledon aren't a massive club, I felt that this might be of enough interest to entice someone!

It's currently on ebay with a few others. Click here to view... and have a cheeky bid!

Warhurst, Man City

To try and get on top of my massive selection of repaint photos, I've been lumping similar kits together in these blog posts recently... but I've never done another figure quite like this!

(click to enlarge)

I was really pleased with this one! The lines to make up the criss cross pattern were thin and consistent. I knew this kit would be a challenge, but I think I rose to it!

The Man City fan who this was for didn't know what number Warhurst wore in City's reserves in the 80s... so we went with 8!

Leeds Tonkas, 89-91

To continue in chronological order with these Leeds Tonka figures, here are the next 2 home kits, both sponsored by Top Man:

 Two popular kits from part of a great spell at Elland Road! The first was worn in the promotion season, as Leeds were crowned champions of the old Division 2 in 1989-90.

The next was worn as Leeds announced their arrival back in the top flight with a creditable 4th place finish.

In a time before squad numbers, 5 was usually worn by Chris Fairclough in both of these seasons, and by 1990, 11 nearly always worn by the ever popular Gary Speed.

More Tonkas to come... including a few non-Leeds!

Goater, Wanchope, Weah, City

Thought I'd lump these 3 together, as they're all in exactly the same kit... and I haven't posted in a while!

I've gone against my usual inclination of putting them in shirt number order here! I've gone for surname alphabetical order!

In recent weeks, as I've added really fine details, I've found myself thinking; "I probably wouldn't have done that a year ago!"

On these figures that crossed my mind with the 2 white stripes on the front bit of the collar, and the thin blue stripes on each side of the white shoulder strip.

I'm happy to feel that even now, my work is progressing, and I'm adding things I wouldn't have attempted before!