Euro 2016 – The Finale

Well, we did it. We finished. On time! We drew all 800 Euro 2016 Panini stickers in 30 days, beginning on the day the tournament began and finishing a mere thirteen minutes before this evening’s final kicked-off. We’re tired – insanely, immeasurably tired – but we staggered over the line this afternoon in a blaze of shoddy pencil work and cack-handed colouring-in. Hurray!

So, how did we finish? Why, with a load of rubbish drawings of course…

Is that Kamil Grosicki? Or is it the ghost of Macauley Culkin from an alternate-ending version of ‘Home Alone’, maybe a Director’s Cut Redux where Joe Pesci casually kills him with a lead pipe? We’re ruling nothing out.

Razvan Rat’s arms are, surely, impossibly short. Worse still, someone has stolen Roman Shirokov’s guitar. Lovren, Podolski and Mandanda are a risible shambles. It’s simply incredible that were still so bad at this.

By the way, we’re watching the Euro 2016 Final as I type. The fact that I’m writing this instead of paying full attention is probably a good indication of the quality of the game. That said, there was a good bit earlier involving a big moth landing on Ronaldo’s face…

Microsoft Paint is the best.

Anyway, as we mentioned, our final sticker was completed just minutes before the final kick-off. And here it is (and, rest assured, it is predictably rubbish…)
744A fairly grumpy Nacer Chadli was the man to nudge us over the line, looking ever so slightly embittered at being left until the end. Maybe he was picked last in PE as a kid, and this brought back some unpleasant memories. Hope we didn’t touch a nerve.

So that’s it, with this shoddy, smudged Chadli we have, somehow, finished. It’s been a heck of a month. Best of all, we did it to the backdrop of a wonderful display of generosity from you lot, who’ve donated a completely fantastic £3803.79 to our charity appeal. This has completely blown our minds, so a huge and heartfelt thank-you to every one of you who has donated, and those who have kept us company along the way (or humoured us) with your encouragement, kindly comments and Twitter witticisms.

We’ll post a little extra something tomorrow, but for now, time for some rest. It’s been a blast. Maybe see you all at the World Cup?

30 DAYS.

800 STICKERS DOWN.

0 STICKERS LEFT.

£3810.38 raised.

THANKS!!!

Sian & Alex

P.S. Not too late to donate to our charities…

 

Euro 2016 – Day 30

One day to go. Euro 2016 in all it’s glory ends tomorrow, and so too must our month-long quest to draw 800 misshapen, ham-fisted little pictures of footballers. We set out with the heady notion of filling the Panini Euro 2016 sticker album for zero pounds and zero pence, raising money for Cancer Research and MacIntyre Charity along the way, if we could. To put it bluntly, we simply can’t believe the nice words and even nicer donations that people have sent our way. The world can look a bit rubbish on occasion, but you lot have been brilliant, and made 200 hours of work and the total suspension of our normal lives an absolute pleasure. You’re all more than deserving of an Icelandic thunderclap. Altogether now: “HUH!”

Right, onto today’s nonsense, with this opening trio of dross. We’re guessing Santi Cazorla’s picture was preceded by something like “Smile Santi, smile. No, smile. Big smile. Santi? No, smile Santi, come on, this is for the Panini album. Smile Santi! Oh forget it…” Poor guy. Meanwhile Sokol Cikalleshi peers with poorly-concealed distaste at a droopy-eyed Alan Dzagoev, perhaps in the manner of a man who has realised ten minutes into a transatlantic flight that he’s sat next to someone who subconsciously hums to themselves quietly yet audibly.

What a mess. Fairly certain that Zoltan Stieber’s hair is not actually possible. Roland Juhasz is surely soon to be cast as ‘Dead-Eyed Henchman #2’ in some abominable straight-to-Netflix action sequel. Caner Erkin runs a juice bar.

Marek Hamsik as a spiny fish, Zlatan as a pompous thumb, and Lorik Cana as a dishevelled mess who we now realise has a mysteriously uncoloured-in leg. That’s going to annoy us until the end of time.

Lastly today, one or two of you might have spotted us popping up on the actual news at some point in the past 24 hours. Have a watch.

Obviously this is insane on any number of levels, but happily it meant a very welcome splurge of donations from you good folk. In fact, let’s get to today’s enormously pleasing numbers…

24 HOURS LEFT.

783 STICKERS DOWN.

17 STICKERS TO GO.

And – a whopping £3337.54 raised for our charities. This is absolutely extraordinary, so gigantic thanks to anyone who has donated so far. And, if you haven’t, it’s not too late! Chuck us a few quid and you may well get yourself drawn, too. Check back tomorrow to (hopefully) see us stumble over the finish line.

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Euro 2016 – Day 29

The end looms. Just 48 hours till the Euro 2016 final kicks off, by which time we will – hopefully – have finished drawing all 800 flipping Euro 2016 Panini stickers. We’re tired. Extraordinarily, devastatingly tired. Our ink-stained fingers ache as carpel tunnel syndrome takes hold. Our overworked, under-rested eyes squint and twitch of their own volition. Looking at a regular human, non-footballer face, like that of a friend or loved one, now induces subconscious, stupefying thoughts: “I bet that jaw would be tricky to draw… I know exactly the pencil shade for that beard…”

48 hours. Let’s get to it.

Pajtim Kasami would probably look quite menacing if his eyes were the same distance up his head. Norbert Gyomber has the expectant puppy-waiting-for-a-treat routine down to a tee. Stay, boy, stay. Valentin Stocker has just received some unexpected and terrible news mid-smile, freezing him in rictus-grinned ambivalence for all eternity.

Poland vs Switzerland in a highly competitive Interpretive Dance-Off. I think Stephan Lichtsteiner just edges it for the Swiss.

Josip Drmic has been awake for 96 hours. Decaf please. Pierre Bengtsson wins Most Chiselled Swede 2016, retaining his title for a record breaking sixth year. Poor Fabio Coentrao’s dishevelled surf-bum chic is a powerful warning of the perils of a life spent paddling around in the breakers and saying “radical.”

551Been putting this off for a little while, but here’s our chilling depiction of Euro 2016’s eerie mascot ‘Super Victor’, last seen fleeing a burning orphanage. Brrrr.

And so, that’s your lot for the evening. The end is mercifully in sight. Here’s a strange thing: we were apparently on the BBC News tonight. We haven’t seen it yet, but as soon as we can track down a clip it’ll appear here for your ridicule. Can’t wait. Hopefully though it’ll lead to a few more donations, speaking of which: my oh my, we’ve just passed the £2300 barrier. Incredible! Keep those donations coming in, you absolutely wonderful people, and give us the final kick up the bum needed to get us over the line by Sunday evening. I suspect it’s going to be very close…

752 STICKERS DOWN.

48 STICKERS TO GO.

£2307.04 RAISED.

47 hours to go…

Sian & Alex

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Euro 2016 – Day 28

Ah, Wales, that was too much fun. Yes, our brave, badly drawn boyos ultimately came up short against Portugal, but thankfully that didn’t mean we couldn’t make some mischief in the meantime. The Manic Street Preachers, responsible for Wales’ ‘official song‘ of the tournament, tweeted a photo of themselves as Panini stickers in the hours before yesterday’s game. Obviously, we couldn’t let this pass without offering up our own depiction of Blackwood’s finest…

Weirdly enough, this nonsense found its way into a Guardian article about the Wales team’s soon-to-be-glorious homecoming. The world is a strange and brilliant thing.

Anyway, let’s get to it with today’s shameful daubings. A maniacal, potentially homicidal Krzystof Maczynski gets us off to a chilling start. None of your common-or-garden quiet “he kept himself to himself” psychopathy here, this is proper leering axe-murderer territory. But this is far from today’s worst crime against art, that honour surely going to an apparently heavily medicated Ozan Tufan. We’re truly sorry, although not as sorry as Ramazan Ozcan probably is with his choice of facial hair. Now I’m no expert on beards, but a single vertical line betwixt chin and bottom lip has surely never even danced around the peripheries of being fashionable.

Just when you think things can’t get any worse, we lower the bar still further. Between the nightmarish lamprey-mouth of Daniel Kolar, the jagged, impossible jaw of Maciej Rybus and the buttery fringe of Ladislav Krejci, we really do keep finding new and terrible ways of messing up drawings.

That’s all for today, we treated ourselves to actually watching tonight’s other semi-final, so we’re now a teeny tiny bit behind our target. Not too far behind, but just enough to guarantee a sleepless night. So it’ll be Portugal v France on Sunday… we shall see you then…

729 STICKERS DOWN

71 STICKERS TO GO

And: an outrageous, fantastic £2207.04 raised for our charities. Just beyond incredible, if you’ve donated you are a total hero. And if you haven’t, and would like to and maybe, just maybe get a rubbish drawing of yourself for your trouble, then DONATE!

P.S. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc and never miss a rubbish picture.

 

Euro 2016 – Day 27

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Distractions. They gnaw away at us. Not normal everyday distractions like TV, or the internet, or friends or family or alcohol or fun, but basic human functions like eating, washing, tidying up after yourself. They’re not basic human functions anymore, they’re now just things to be avoided, or delayed, shunted to the back of your mind’s eye so we can get on with the serious business of drawing all the flipping footballers. The end is in sight though, just four and a bit days to go. Soon, we’ll be able to treat ourselves to clean clothes, hot food, and maybe, just maybe, mowing the lawn before our landlords evict us. Anyway, let’s see what horrors are in store for us today…

Good God. Igor Smolnikov’s neck belongs on no human body ever, tapering to an improbably pin-headed, jug-eared pinnacle that would have to be six to ten feet further away than his body for the perspective to make any sense. Just disastrous. Everyone else gets away comparatively unscathed, although it goes without saying that nobody looks anything like who they’re supposed to. We really are remarkably resistant to improvement.

Bleary-eyed Djourou. Snooty Ginter. Rabid Inler. Refined and raffish Burki.

Starting to warm to these fiddly little skinny stickers, mainly by imagining them all being engaged in interpretive dance. More emoting, please!

Shouting is fun. Hopefully in these fractured times that’s something we can all agree on.


Right, that’s all for today. The Wales game looms. We’ll be watching it through our fingers, sweaty palmed and tense, giddy with glee at the newness of it all. It can’t go on, can it? We shall see. Bechgyn pop lwc! And remember, if you want to show support for our badly drawn boyos, grab Helen Love’s outstanding Euro 2016 anthem RIGHT HERE, with all proceeds going to our charity appeal. Speaking of which…

700(!) STICKERS DOWN.

100 STICKERS TO GO.

£2082.38 RAISED for our charities. Incredible!

If you’ve enjoyed any of of our crummy drawings (or the accompanying rambles), please do consider popping a pound or two to our charity appeal. You’ll be a big hero, and may get a dreadful picture of yourself in return. Lucky you, eh?

Until tomorrow,

Sian & Alex

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P.S. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc and never miss a rubbish picture.

Euro 2016 – Day 26

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The semi-finals start tomorrow. Wales are playing Portugal. Wales. Wales are in a semi-final. In the football! It still takes some getting your head round. As long-standing, long-suffering Welsh football types, we’re horribly, queasily excited. It’s really been a brilliant journey. And, like all the best improbable football journeys, it’s had a slew of accompanying Wales-flavoured Euro 2016 themed pop songs to go with it. The Manics had a go, the Super Furry Animals knocked one out the park, but our personal fave has to be this…

The excellent Helen Love with the equally excellent ‘A Boy From Wales Called Gareth Bale‘. We were lucky enough to be asked to donate an entirely rubbish drawing of the man himself for the front cover, and as of WEDNESDAY, the day of the biggest game in Wales’ history, all proceeds from the single will go to our charity appeal. So, if you haven’t donated to our charities yet (now over £2000!), why not do so and grab yourself an awesome tune in the meantime?

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Moving on…

Tiny Irishman. Once again, poor Richard Keogh gets it in the neck. It’s nothing personal, honest. I’m sure he’s a lovely guy, and darned handsome in reality. There’s just clearly something about his face that our clumsy fingers cannot handle.

A shoddy quartet. Impossible ears, a budget Zlatan, and two men whose hair doesn’t seem to fit in the teeny confines of our 64mm x 49mm stickers. All rubbish.

Oh dear, oh dear. A somnambulist Adrian Popa, Chris Baird after two months in the hole at Shawshank, and Vierinha looking like a nervous rodent. How can we still be this bad at drawing? The mind boggles.

That’s all for today. Don’t forget to donate to our charities for that warm, fuzzy glow, either by the usual channels or by buying Helen Love’s flipping excellent catchy ear-worm Euro anthem. We can’t believe the amount we’ve managed to raise so far, we’re both absolutely made up at the generosity of you lot.

669 STICKERS DOWN.

131 STICKERS TO GO.

5 DAYS LEFT.

And, a frankly ridiculous £2082.38 raised. Amazing!

Oh, one more thing before we go…

589There are no words.

Check back tomorrow!

Alex & Sian

P.S. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc and never miss a rubbish picture.

 

Euro2016 – Day 25

A landmark! A milestone! A single, tangible step towards completion! Yes, all of these things and more, shouted loudly, because we’ve finally finished our first team. The brave and beloved boys of the emerald isle are the lucky so-and-so’s, recreated here in their entirety for you to pour scorn on at will.

Thanks to the eleven million people on Twitter who pointed out that James McClean’s shirt is the wrong green. We know, but the other green felt tip pen was all the way on the other side of the room, and we’re terribly tired. Anyway,  our personal favourites from this appalling collection:

No need for us to go over again the innumerable problems with these depictions, as they’re scattered throughout the past weeks of blog for you to hunt down at your leisure. Suffice to say that we wouldn’t want to bump into Stephen Ward in a dark alley, or have Richard Keogh corner you at what should be an enjoyable barbecue with your mates, only for him to unburden his soul to you for three hours while you frantically try and make eye contact with your friends to get them to come and rescue you, but they can’t and won’t, because the same thing happened to them at their last birthday and they were trapped listening to him for ages and nobody helped and now it’s your turn and they just want to watch you squirm and it’s just never going to end and you consider maybe pretending your phone is ringing or faking a heart attack or just pointing and yelling “LOOK OVER THERE” and turning and running in the other direction. Or maybe that’s just us.

Travesty after travesty. Taras Stepanenko’s eyes pull the unusual trick of being able to follow both you and someone else around the room simultaneously. Robert Mak’s full, pouting lips and immaculate complexion are straight from a naff aftershave advert. Pop him in an old-timey sailor’s outfit and bingo. Mario Pasalic joins the growing list of little guys who have had something spilled on them amidst the organised chaos of our coffee table – not tea this time, but green paint on his poor forehead. Sorry Mario.

A load of rubbish. Viktor Pecovsky inclines his head like a curious dog while Andre and Edmar gurn in pleasing synchronicity. Harnik radiates depression. Marchisio is just stupendously sexy.


Apologies for the lateness with today’s blog, we were working on a little extra something special which will hopefully see the light of day later this week. In the meantime, and until the semi-finals (featuring WALES) kick-off on Saturday, please do consider chucking a few quid to our charities, which you can do HERE in massive capital letters. We’re within sight of the finish now, and tantalising close to reaching our notional target of £2000, which would mean a grand apiece to our charities. Wouldn’t you like to help? Course you would, you’re lovely.

653 STICKERS DOWN

147 STICKERS TO GO

£1951.13 RAISED!

Until tomorrow,

Sian & Alex

569P.S. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc and never miss a rubbish picture.

Euro 2016 – Day 24

One week to go. The home straight. The end in sight. Seven more days of this limbo, this purgatory, our ordinary lives on hold, everything shunted to one side to make room for the unceasing, supremely amateurish drawing of endless tiny men. In the past 23 days we’ve churned out over 600 hundred of the little fellas, the accuracy of our depictions ebbing and flowing gently between the extremes of “a bit rubbish” and “really, really rubbish”.

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Mercifully though, you lovely lot have made the whole shebang more than worthwhile so far, digging deep and coughing up for our charities to the tune of over £1800 so far. We’re beyond chuffed that so many of you have taken the time and given up your hard-earned pennies to donate, so enormous thanks to all who have. And if you haven’t, you know what to do…

Right, on to today’s apologies. First off, Juan Mata, wearing the clenched grimace of a man who has just found out Jose Mourinho is about to sell him for the second time in three years. Poor bloke. Pawel Olkowski chews thoughtfully having escaped the worst of our clumsiness, unlike  Yann Sommer whose part surfer-dude, part botox-victim visage is genuinely upsetting.

Romanians! Remember Romania? They were in the tournament for ten seconds what feels like about two thousand years ago… so many teams seemed to disappear from the group stage without so much as a whimper. Good job we’re here to capture their indignity for ever in teeny, tiny 64mm x 22mm rectangles.

The appallingly sinister Sehiy Rybalka straight up gives me the willies, his piercing stare boring straight into my soul, which quite frankly I could do without, thank you very much. I much prefer the slovenly charm of Oleg Kuzmin, though it’s hard to believe that this is the demeanour (and jowly chin) of a professional footballer.

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Weeee! Here’s the, er, “Official” logo of Panini, the sticker guys who have been kind enough to not yet send us a cease-and-desist letter. We’re going to assume they’re a lovely bunch, who don’t mind us using tin foil, felt tips and clumsiness to appropriate their iconic trademark. Shame he’s shinned it, though. Probably went out for a throw-in.

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That’s all for today, please keep on making us laugh on Twitter with your ongoing gentle ridicule of our hopeless doodles. We’re also on Facebook too, if that’s more your thing. And most importantly, PLEASE do think about donating to our charities, we’ll be drawing our top 100 donors, meaning there’s still some slots very much up for grabs if you want to be Paninified by our untrustworthy hands…

613 STICKERS DOWN.

187 STICKERS TO GO.

£1866.13 raised! You lot are great.

Until tomorrow…

Sian & Alex

 

Euro 2016 – Day 23

Ah, the weekend is upon us again, meaning another two days of utterly failing to mow the lawn, choosing instead to spend our precious, hard-won hours of rest up to our elbows in Romanians, Slovakians, Albanians, Croatians and so on, and so on, and so on…

We’ve been busy, this much is true. We thought we’d try and gee ourselves up for tonight’s Germany vs Italy quarter final by bodging together some of Panini’s “hero” stickers for each team. As you can see, poor Thomas Muller didn’t come out of too well. Although he arguably fared a little better than Gigi Buffon…

This really pains us. In reality, Gigi Buffon is without question one of the most beautiful human beings alive. What a shame we’ve reduced him to such a shambles.


Moving on, here’s some of Buffon’s tiny team-mates, all uniformly dreadful.

Ah, this is much more in our comfort zone. Rubbish beards, chinless, gap-toothed mannequins, and and Aleksandr Kerzhakov apparently trying to flee from having his picture drawn. One more second and he’d have disappeared out of frame entirely.

What’s this? This indistinct shape, merely hinting at the existence of something that might offer even the vaguest suggestion of Martin Olsson. Francois Moubandje is a little more defined, though his jaw seems in danger of detaching from his head enirely.

Lastly today, we bring you a tale of decaying motor skills and bitter recriminations, as one of us, sleep-deprived and brain-furred by doing nothing but draw stickers for 23 days, sloshed tea over a stoic and unflinching Josh Magennis. Obviously, a blazing row followed. We’ll update you tomorrow regarding whether we’re talking to each other again.

594 STICKERS DOWN.

206 STICKERS TO GO.

And, get this: a wonderful £1817.38 raised for our charities. If you’ve enjoyed (by which we mean laughed at) any of our drawings over the past three-and-a-bit weeks, please do consider donating to our good causes. You’ll help make this descent into madness worthwhile, AND if you’re in our top 100 donations, we’ll draw you too. Badly. Like, really badly…

534P.S. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc and never miss a rubbish picture.

Euro 2016 – Day 22

Okay, we’re going to cut to the chase: it’s currently half-time in the Wales v Belgium game, meaning the pair of us are ever so slightly distracted by on-pitch events, just for once. We want to draw, we need to draw, but tearing ourselves away from this match to attend to our doodling duties is one sacrifice too far. BUT, we’ve tried to be extra busy this afternoon, meaning there are at least a few freshly rendered shambles for you to avert your gaze from…

A peculiarly squashed Constantin Budescu, a bit like one of those square watermelons that get grown in perspex cubes. Sime Vrsaljko is as bland and inoffensive as unbuttered toast. Raphael Varana is that rarest of things, a picture drawn by us that makes the subject look like a fairly pleasant sort. No funny angles, no boggle-eyes, and his face is even broadly symmetrical. We must be losing our touch.

I know Diego Costa has had a hard life, I know he’s no oil painting in reality, but we’ve subjected him to some cruel and unusual treatment here. Feeling pretty bad about it, to be honest. Chris Brunt gets off relatively lightly in comparison.

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Words fail me. Pure awfulness.

Okay, we’re off. As we may have mentioned, Wales are playing and oh-oh-oh-my-word-they’ve-just-gone-2-1-ahead-gotta-go-bye…

570 STICKERS DOWN.

230 STICKERS TO GO.

And… £1754.88 raised so far for our charities. We don’t have time today to think of creative ways to beg for donations, so let’s just leave it at this: DONATE DONATE DONATE DONATE! We’ll probably draw a picture of you and everything.

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