Adrian Mangel's one-of-a-kind portraits of the world's most famous footballers

If you like your sports stars scribbly of face and a little bit wonky then illustrator Adrian Mangel is your man. His hand-drawn portraits of everybody’s favourite collectible cards – from Ronaldo and Ivanov to Henry and Bastituta – are incredibly refreshing for their honesty, made with oil pastels, coloured pencils and watercolours.

Honesty, as it turns out, is exactly what he wants to communicate in his work. “Art is too serious. People take art too seriously,” Adrian says in the artist’s statement on his website, echoing our sentiment entirely. “I want to pursue a practice that questions the normality of the inaccessibility of the arts to the vast majority… I try to reference things I actually like. Nothing is done in irony or satire; rather, I am trying to bring the viewer forward and have him or her interact and participate with the piece.” If that means Adrian will continue to draw familiar faces in his own unique and irresistible style, we’re all for it.