Brazilian Sports Legends

The Brazilian ESPN Magazine invited me to create a series of 18 portraits of historical brazilian sports personalities for their 1st anniversary edition, released in November. This special issue features a ranking of the 50 most important brazilian sportists in history.

I had the pleasure to draw portraits of some great brazilian idols such Ayrton Senna (F-1 driver), Ronaldo, Ronaldinho and Romario (football players) Cesar Cielo (olympic champion and recordist of swimming), Maurren Maggi (olympic champion of Long Jump) among others.

All these portraits were done in vector, in Adobe Illustrator, using various photography sources as references.  I worked a techinque of vector where I draw a very detailed linework, trying to capture all the facial features and making the basic shading using lines, then I apply bright colors, with a simple shading and reflections. The result is an organic look, different from the usual vector art style.

More works at: www.crisvector.com

Ronaldo – Football Player

Cesar Cielo – Recordist and Olympic Champion of Swimming

Ronaldinho – Football Player

Maurren Maggi – Olympic Champion of Long Jump

Maria Esther Bueno – The most victorious brazilian woman in tennis.

Robert Scheidt – Olympic Champion of Yatching

Romario – Football Player

Adhemar Ferreira da Silva – Olympic Champion of Triple Jump in Helsinki (52) and Melbourne (56)

Bob Burnquist – Skateboarder

Carlos Alberto – Football player, captain of the brazilian world champions team in 70.

Eder Jofre – Pugilist

Garrincha – Football player, world champion in 58 and 62

Gustavo Kuerten – Tennis Player

Leonidas da Silva – Football Player

Ubiratan Maciel – Basketball Player, Olympic Champion in Tokyo (64)

Wlamir Marques – Basketball Player

Zizinho – Football Player