Holme Originals

Back again, and just enough time to write a blog post before (Lockdown cliche incoming) taking my banana bread out of the oven!

I've previously posted about making Holme FC figures for Charity, and here are another set that I made... must be pushing a year ago now.

These are all effectively Football Manager Regen players, featured in a series on the YouTube Channel: Lollujo. Check it out- honestly, watching someone else play Football Manager takes a lot of the stress out of it!!

The series these players featured in was based much more on story telling than tutorials on how to play the game, and all of them came through the Holme youth academy, and featured prominently in a run from tier 8 up through the divisions. Along with Mick Powell and Anthony Harris, they were dubbed "The Holme Originals"!

Anyway, the figures themselves are loosely based on the FM regen pics, (so, right hair and right skin colour!!)

The sponsor on the shirt is The National Autistic Society (who the money from the ebay sales went to) and you may have realised that the design on the third shirt is also based on the NAS logo.

If you were wondering about the number font, Fernandes and Phillips got more game time in the EFL, while Morris was one of the few good enough to cut it in the Prem!!

Overall, these figures, along with those of Powell and Harris, raised over £150 for chairty!

It's Coming Holme

Quick Christmas Eve blog post, why not?!

A quick look through my folder of pics suggests no obvious Christmas puns to be made, so being as it's the season of goodwill, not only will I spare you the terrible jokes, but I'll also post pics of some figures that I did for charity:

I'll keep it at 4 for now, but there are more! In case you are wondering who the heck these people are, they are fitional, regenerated players on the game Football Manager!!

They featured in a youtube series, which I'll link here, where a fella named Kev took Holme FC from tier 8 to Champions League glory, with both of these players featuring pretty much all the way up the divisions!

If you're wondering about the similarities of the kits, during the series, a debate ensued (this is the internet, after all) about whether the kit was green or black, so I did both to see which sold better in its charity auction... it was green, obviously!

Overall, my charity figures raised over £150 this year, with these 4 contributing a fair whack of that. These ones were for the National Autistic Society (a charity associated with the channel), as you may have guessed if you looked closely at the shirt sponsor, but money was also raised for Cancer research by other figures.

I'll post the rest of the Holme Figures soon.

It's Coming Holme!

And now for something completely different!

OK, not completely! Still Corinthian repaints, with a dash of remodelling thrown in, but not something I've done much of before.

Here's a figure based on a Football Manager '19 regen player, as featured in the YouTube series: "It's Coming Holme".

Basically, the guy who presents the channel made up a team (Holme FC) and put them in the lowest league possible. I think it was 3 or 4 divisions below the Conference. Anyway, Mick Powell, or should I say Sir Mick Powell(?!) emerged as a teenager in the first season, and scored in every division on the way to the Premier League.

As a result, I decided to make a figure of him, and send it to the guy who makes the videos. And here he is:

I was pleased with how it turned out, and it got some very nice comments from Lollujo himself, and many people who watch the channel. It has even featured in a few of the videos.

Incidentally, there has been some debate over whether the Holme shirt is dark green or black! I went with dark green for this one. 

And where would Sir Mick be without his inspirational manager?!

I threw this figure in too! Minor remodel on the hair, and a pair of glasses stolen from a Lars Lagerback figure which I had used for another remodel!

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!!