I’ve never actually seen Sócrates play. Never watched a YouTube clip. Never seen highlights on TV. I have however made art depicting him at least three times. His image, it’s a winner. The odd physicality calls out with an odd sepia tinged siren song; draw me, exaggerate me!
His defining feature would appear to be his farcically elongated legs. I can imagine them now; frantically arranging themselves, extending and retracting in optimal directions, transporting his ambivalent upper half about the pitch, like a moody king slumped on a yellow and green sedan chair.
People with odd body types are the most fun to draw hands down, this is because it’s hard to make them look wrong. This is how I’ll always know Sócrates; as a forgiving assortment of yellow, green, black and blue.
You can watch a 30 second time-lapse of this artwork being created here.