Cole, Celtic

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OK, so not exactly a Celtic legend, but one for the completist collector! I know understand him wanting to have this painted; I have a Michael Ricketts figure in my Leeds collection!!

I like how this ended up, and it was nice to be able to do Celtic's traditional home colours; considering how many Bhoys figures I've done, I've not done the famous green and white hoops many times.

Carlton Cole appreciated the figure too, well, enough to like and retweet it on Twitter, anyway.

PNE Soccerstarz

Here are two more PNE figures, which I actually finished painting quite a while ago.

I give you Clarke and Gallagher:

Two key players in Preston's promotion and consolidation in the Championship. As you may have expected, lookalike figures had to be used!

This isn't the case with all my Preston repaints tho, as Lindegaard was a soccerstarz release, and let's not forget the prestigious names in North End's past including a young David Beckham and of course the legendary Sir Tom Finney!

EDIT: Almost forgot, Gally had this to say about the figure of himself on Twitter:

Concise!

Pringle, PNE

Here's a repainted Soccerstarz figure of Preston North End's new signing, Ben Pringle:

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As with all the recent PNE repaints (bar Lindegaard) a lookalike figure had to be used for Pringle.

The customer chose it himself, and I've got to say, he did a good job! The only thing I had to do was lighten the hair... and repaint the kit, of course.

Pringle responded to a picture of this repaint on twitter!

Short and sweet!!

If you'd like a figure of a player that has never been produced, get in contact; maybe we can find a lookalike, and sort out an unlikely figure!

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.

Pennant, Leeds

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If I remember rightly, this is one of the first Microstar repaints I did for my own collection.

I started running out of Leeds related Prostar repaint options, and as there wasn't a Pennant Prostar, this seemed a logical place to start!

Way back in 2003-04, when Leeds were still a top-flight side, Jermaine Pennant spent a season on loan at Elland Road, and was actually one of the more consistent performers in what was, admittedly a poor team!

He played 36 times for Leeds, and scored twice.

I tweeted a pic of this figure to Jermaine, and this is what he had to say:

A Pair of Whitleys! Man City

As they're brothers, and they're in the same kit, I thought I'd pair the Whitleys up for this post!

Jim and Jeff:

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In a kit that I've previously painted onto Peter Beardsley, here are the Whitley brothers!

City wore this kit between 1997 and 1999; quite an eventful period in the history of the club! 

I tweeted these pictures to Jim Whitley, and he loved them! Actually got into a bit of a conversation with him about them, which ended up with him following my twitter account!

Here are a couple of the things he had to say:

And here are Jeff and Jim Whitley in the kits painted above:

 

Ian Wright, Palace

Gotta say; I'm a big fan of this one:

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Obviously every repaint is significant to the person who orders it, but when I received this order, I just thought; yeah, that's one that should be made!

I was also delighted with how it turned out- from a technical perspective, getting the sponsors perfectly lined up on striped kits is one of the harder things to do. The badge fits perfectly into the stripe on the shirt too!

The basic message is: I was happy with this!!

Ian Wright seemed to like it too!

Gale, Castleford Tigers

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I've been asked to do a few rugby figures recently, but they have mainly been Leeds Rhinos ones!

This was my first Castleford Tiger!

As I think I mentioned in a previous rugby figure post, the main problem I've had with these is the position of the arms- it sometimes means that I can't put a sponsor on! I don't think it detracts from this one too much tho!

Neither did Gale himself, who had this to say on Twitter:

England, World Cup '90, Part 1

So, here's the next part of the England tournament full squads project! Italia '90 players incoming!

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Fun to paint, this kit, and I got plenty of practice; keep your eye out for more England World Cup 1990 posts!

I particularly enjoyed doing the bit inside the collar, and the bits on the sleeves!

Any Corinthian aficionados will also notice that the Chris Waddle figure has been remodelled! Very proud of the mullet I managed to craft!

Waddle liked it too, on twitter!

Oh also, because you know I have a bit of an issue with detail... England didn't wear names on shirts at Italia '90; just squad numbers, 1-22. I asked my customer what he preferred, and he asked for names too.

Sinclair, Man City

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A fairly simple repaint, this one.

If you're a regular reader of this blog, you'll know I'm not a big fan of white numbers on light blue shirts, but feel it came out pretty well on this one!

Sinclair himself liked the repaint enough to favourite a picture of it on twitter!

Bishop, Man City

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It's time for another Man City play-off final repaint post!

Ian Bishop, who, on account of his number 14, I'm guessing came off the bench!

I've posted quite a few of these now, so I'm running out of things to say about the paint job!

...

My reason for posting this today? Yesterdays Tweet from Ian Bishop! 

You can even see him in the kit on his Twitter profile pic!

Bridges, England U21s

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Michael Bridges, who  turned out for England under-21s in his time at Leeds.

I fully believe that, if it weren't for his dreadful injury problems, Bridges would have been a full England international.

In his first season at Leeds, he got 21 goals in all competitions, but his contribution aside from goals was also excellent; his passing and vision giving him numerous assists and key contributions.

Such a shame that injuries hampered his career.

But back to the repaint... Michael Bridges himself had this to say:

2014 Costa Rica squad... the last bit!

Well, you made it! Here are the final 2 Costa Ricans from the full 2014 World Cup Squad that I painted!

I give you:

Marco Urena:

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and

Jose Miguel Cubero:

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And that's it! I have painted more Costa Rica players than any other International team!

Oh, and Cubero felt that his figure was worth a fave and a RT:

Ormerod, Blackpool

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I've had a few more Blackpool figures to do recently; including lookalikes, such as this one, but also, possibly the most iconic repaint I've done!

I can't post pics of it yet, as I haven't sent it to the customer, and I always want them to see first, so, for now, you'll have to settle for Brett Ormerod!

A Blackpool away kit was chosen (possibly their play-off final one?!) for this repaint.

Ormerod himself favourited a pic of this repaint o twitter:

3 More Costa Ricans!

Cristian Gamboa:

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Yeltsin Tejeda:

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Roy Miller:

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Home kit and away kit on display in these pics! I've nearly finished posting the Costa Rica pics now... but I do have a fairly big surprise incoming! Keep a lookout for it!

I got messages back from two of these 3 on Twitter! Gamboa had this to say...

... while this was Tejeda's response:

Anyone any good at Spanish?!

Costa Rica... the next 3!

Michael Barrantes:

Randall Brenes:

Junior Diaz:

I'm running out of things to say about these Costa Rica figures, to a degree! 

So, just in case you haven't read my previous posts about them, I'll say again, that I think they are some of my best work! 

I suppose it may be because I got plenty of practice, but I think the red 'swoosh' on the front is pretty slick, and I liked doing all the different boot designs.

Completing a whole squad was really satisfying. It may have been that that inspired me to do a whole Leeds 1992 team for myself.

Regarding these figures, by only Twitter reply was from Junior Diaz. He thought it was Niceee. 

See?!

Ruddock, Spurs

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It's hard to believe that it's pretty much a year since my big Spurs order... and that I'm still posting the photos of the figures from it now! Just in case you wondered, that's because I like to mix up the order of the photos to give my readers a bit of variety!

This figure was a pretty straightforward repaint of Razor Ruddock, in an early 90s kit.

Razor also retweeted an image of this repaint on twitter. Whether that's because of the figure, or pandering to him with the phrase"THFC great"... it still counts!