moecupmascots

Can you tell that I hate drawing backgrounds…?

Speaking of backgrounds… Gunnar and Huacho!They’re the first (unofficial) World Cup mascots. Since there’s only 1 image of each, I had to really work with what I had. Huacho’s is in black and white, so there’s lot of guesswork with him.

Ik my grasp on perspective is a little wack atm :/

Timotheus “Tip” (also called “Timo” by his relatives and close friends) Mayr was born September 10, 1961 in Augsburg, Germany. He’s the youngest of two children. His family moved to Bremen on his first birthday, when his sister was four years old. He is of German (Bavarian), Austrian, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Polish, and Romani descent.

His nickname was given when his older sister, Sabine, mispronounced “Tim” after his birth due to her speech impediment. His parents found it absolutely hilarious, and the name stuck.

Tip worked as one of the official mascots of the 1974 World Cup in West Germany, alongside his best friend, Tap (Sjoerd Feddersen), when the two were 13 years old. Tip and Tap have such a close relationship, people frequently mistake them for brothers. Mutual bullying and teasing is their way of showing love for each other. Tip can pick Tap up and throw him in order to piss him off. This does, in fact, piss him off. In return, Tap casually uses Tip’s head as an armrest.

Tip has had only one romantic partner for his entire life: An English woman named Harriet who moved to Bremen a few months before meeting Tip. She asked him for directions on the street on one rainy day, and the two nearly instantly clicked.

By 1982, his relationship with his sister Sabine is strained and distant due to her rapidly declining mental health and refusal to accept help from her family… Or anyone, for that matter.

Tip LOVES FOOD! Fried, fast, sloppy, warm, filling, tastebud-exploiting food. Good ol’ comfort food. If it’s tasty, Tip has already scarfed it down. Thick schnitzel (like his mother used to make!) and currywurst with fries both have a place in his heart.

Tip trains nearly every day, so his physique is particularly impressive. He’s 181lbs / 82kg of muscle with a bit of fat here and there. He’s quite the beefy guy!

I thought VERY hard about giving him Romani ancestry, since discussing this would require a lot of care and research in order to not accidentally perpetuate any stereotypes about the Romani community. I did my homework. Tip has a distant Rom ancestor that he isn’t aware of. None of his immediate family— neither his parents, nor his grandparents— have freckles… His Rom ancestor, though, does. The ancestry that he’s not aware of is literally written on his face. Tip has his suspicions and prefers to avoid discussions about his ancestry other than his Bavarian heritage.

Tap has called him “Zigeuner” (“gypsy”) exactly once as a low blow about his appearance during a fight between the two. Tip, a man who is not prone to violence, nearly beat the daylights out of him.